Silver Fern Farms' financial position continues to improve, with the company posting an operating profit of $86.9 million for the year ended September, up 28% on last year's result.
The company, which is awaiting regulatory approval from both the New Zealand Overseas Investment Office and Chinese authorities for a joint venture with Chinese company Shanghai Maling, has released a summary of key items in this year's financial results.
Reported profit was $24.9million, up from $0.5million in 2014, while total income was $2.45billion, up from $2.33billion.
The company's focus on reducing debt continued, with net debt down from $288.6million to $120.9million.
Chairman Rob Hewett described it as a positive result, delivered in an environment where there was a number of constraints.
All species - beef, sheepmeat and venison - made a significant contribution to the overall improvement, which was particularly pleasing, he said.
The company endured horror years in 2012 and 2013 with reported losses of $31million and $28.6million respectively.
While this year's result was a significant improvement on 2014, there was still progress to make to achieve a return that reflected the amount of capital invested in the business over the course of a season, Mr Hewett said in a statement.
A key aim for 2015 had been to put Silver Fern Farms on a sustainable financial footing.
To achieve that, the company needed to both reduce debt and introduce new equity.
Debt had been reduced by $168million through the company's own initiatives: being profitable, reducing inventory, selling non-core assets, and winding down the investment in its dairy bull beef scheme.
The combination of its improvement and the new investment by Shanghai Maling would put Silver Fern Farms into not only a position of financial stability but one of strength, Mr Hewett said.
Shanghai Maling will inject $261million into the company and, if the transaction goes ahead, Silver Fern Farms would next year be debt-free and have at least $50illion in cash.
Chief executive Dean Hamilton said beef and venison both had good results this year and the company's big focus on turning around the performance of its sheepmeat business was starting to achieve results with a ''meaningful'' profit - the first in four years.
There was still significant scope for continued improvement across all three species.
The performance was achieved while managing the business within a prudent risk framework, Mr Hamilton said.
''Disciplines around managing our inventory, committed livestock purchases and product sales meant that we did not carry excessive risk in achieving the result. Year-end inventory of $73illion was the lowest level for at least the last seven years,'' he said.
The season presented various challenges for the company, including its limited financial flexibility at times to respond to changing conditions and, therefore, livestock supply patterns from farmers.
It was confident a combination of improved financial performance and the new investment would provide more flexibility to respond to changes in the operating environment, he said.
The annual report will be released later this month ahead of the company's annual meeting in Dunedin on December 16.
