Ravensdown’s 2021-22 annual results announced last week include an overall group profit of $95 million , and an underlying profit of $68million in the core fertiliser business, before taxation and rebate.
Mr Wills said it was achieved in a year ruled by volatile pricing and global supply challenges.
Total fertiliser sold was slightly up at 1.22 million tonnes, and revenue at $922 million was up $210 million on last year, reflecting the rising prices that dominated the year.
“The rapidly rising international prices makes fertiliser hard to budget for our farmers. To help them, Ravensdown focused on product margins and yielded a FY22 group margin percentage lower than last year."
Chief executive Garry Diack said the company’s "fundamental belief is that this cash is better in use on-farm than in our hands, and our margin-based pricing approach has proven this to be the case this year.
“Consistent with our co-operative values we have positioned the balance sheet for another challenging year in 2023 with $347million of stock in store — providing confidence to customers for spring.”
Ravensdown Shipping Services proved its worth, providing a $26 million boost to the group’s bottom-line performance.
Ravensdown’s reputation as the preferred technology partner for farmers and growers was further cemented by the delivery of soil science, precision placement, and GHG technologies. Hawkeye (including automated N-Cap reporting) subscriptions exceeded 6000 users. EcoPond was formally launched, the potential champion of effluent-based methane gas emission reduction, and a $22 million agreement for nitrification inhibitor development was secured with the Ministry for Primary Industries’ Sustainable Food & Fibre Futures fund.
Mr Diack said the volatility of the market was not going away.
"The need for a capital buffer for the increasing risk a co-operative structure faces, compels a conservative approach to shareholder rebate for 2022.”
A shareholder rebate of $25 per tonne has been declared.
