Growth
February 6th, 2020
⏰ 1 minute read
⏰ 1 minute read
Fun
Going backwards is not fun. What is much more fun is to grow. Best of all is to grow fast. 10 years ago, we were famous as the fastest growing young planter. Then 2 years ago we had the fastest production growth (problem was the price collapsed). For most of the last 1 year, though, we’ve had miserable negative growth. But as of today that’s over.
-50%
Back in July last year, our fruit production measured by 31 days of fruit tons, was down 45% from the year before. That’s a pretty big negative growth. By August the growth had improved to minus 30%. September was a little better agin minus 20%. October to December we climbed into the single digits negative, then January...
Jan
January we still didn’t quite make it to positive, but the growth was only a very small negative less than 5%. And there were exciting signs. January is normally a very slow post holiday month, but January 2020 for the first time ever, production was more than the average of the previous year. The into February...
Plus
January fruit production was 126k tons, but the beginning was slower than the end & as we head into February that measure of 31 days of fruit has reached above 130k tons. By yesterday to be precise 130,498 which is 3% higher than 31 days of fruit was on February 5th 2019. This means our long journey is over & we are back to growth again!
Cash flow
Last time we had strong growth in 2018 the palm oil price was down so we didn’t get to enjoy the growth in terms of sales & cash flow. But this time the palm oil price is growing too. Price growth plus volume growth means sales growth which increasingly means covering costs which then leads to cash flow & cash flow is of course the holy grail for investors.
Sebastian
Going backwards is not fun. What is much more fun is to grow. Best of all is to grow fast. 10 years ago, we were famous as the fastest growing young planter. Then 2 years ago we had the fastest production growth (problem was the price collapsed). For most of the last 1 year, though, we’ve had miserable negative growth. But as of today that’s over.
-50%
Back in July last year, our fruit production measured by 31 days of fruit tons, was down 45% from the year before. That’s a pretty big negative growth. By August the growth had improved to minus 30%. September was a little better agin minus 20%. October to December we climbed into the single digits negative, then January...
Jan
January we still didn’t quite make it to positive, but the growth was only a very small negative less than 5%. And there were exciting signs. January is normally a very slow post holiday month, but January 2020 for the first time ever, production was more than the average of the previous year. The into February...
Plus
January fruit production was 126k tons, but the beginning was slower than the end & as we head into February that measure of 31 days of fruit has reached above 130k tons. By yesterday to be precise 130,498 which is 3% higher than 31 days of fruit was on February 5th 2019. This means our long journey is over & we are back to growth again!
Cash flow
Last time we had strong growth in 2018 the palm oil price was down so we didn’t get to enjoy the growth in terms of sales & cash flow. But this time the palm oil price is growing too. Price growth plus volume growth means sales growth which increasingly means covering costs which then leads to cash flow & cash flow is of course the holy grail for investors.
Sebastian