The Bakkafrost Group reported a total operating earnings before interests and taxes (EBIT) of 223.5 million DKK (30M EUR) in the first quarter of 2021. Total harvested volumes amounted to 21 thousand tonnes gutted weight (tgw) — for the Faroe Islands 14 tgw, and for Scotland 7 tgw. The combined Faroe Islands farming and value-added products (VAP) segments made an operational EBIT of 218.3M DKK, and the Faroe Islands farming segment made an operational EBIT of 143.3M DKK. The Scotland farming segment made an operational EBIT of -6.2M DKK. The VAP segment made an operational EBIT of 75M DKK. Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) for the fishmeal, oil and feed (FOF) segment amounted to DKK 48.3M.
Headquartered in Glyvrar, Bakkafrost is the largest salmon farmer in the Faroe Islands and the second largest salmon farmer in Scotland. The company has a fully integrated value chain, from feed production to smolt, farming, VAP, and sales. The group made a total profit of 407.7 million DKK (54.8M EUR) in Q1 2021, compared to -148M in the same period of last year.
“Overall, we are satisfied with the results from this quarter,” said CEO Regin Jacobsen. “The salmon market has been severely hampered by the Covid-19 pandemic, but during this quarter we have also seen clear signs of improvements in the market. The global supply of salmon in this quarter increased by nearly 16 percent, compared to the first quarter last year. Despite such increase in supply, salmon prices increased during the quarter. The demand for salmon has been very strong in the retail segment and during this quarter we have also seen demand from the food service segment picking up again. We expect this positive development to continue as Covid-19 mass vaccination progresses in the key markets for salmon. All in all, the salmon market outlook is good for the rest of 2021 as the global supply is expected to decrease somewhat, compared to the same period last year.”
Mr. Jacobsen went on to state: “We are especially pleased with the strong results from the VAP segment. Once again, we have seen the benefit of having a flexible value chain which is of great importance to us to maintain our competitive position. The farming segment in the Faroe Islands has performed well and the biology has been strong with good growth and low feed conversion factor. Quarter by quarter our average smolt size increases which also was the case in this quarter. In Scotland, the farming performance is gradually improving, and we expect to see some increase in average smolt size by the end of this year.”
“Our level of activity has been high in the first quarter of 2021,” the CEO added. “This applies to our production as well as to our ongoing investment projects in the Faroe Islands and Scotland. This creates indirect activities and jobs in the local communities where we operate and prefer to source from. The importance of this has been especially high during the Covid-19 pandemic. In this quarter alone, our sourcing from local suppliers in the Faroe Islands amounted to 298 million DKK.”
The Annual General Meeting, convened on 9 April 2021, decided to pay out a dividend of 3.65 DKK (4.96 NOK) per share, with the total dividend of 215.9 million DKK (293.3M NOK) paid out on April 30th.