Chief executive Paul McGilvary, pictured, said the healthy payout was due to a favourable product
mix throughout the year, a new foods plant operating 24/7 and the first year of successful permeate sales. But this will be hard to repeat with the increasing price of milk powder. The company will reforecast in November.
Meanwhile, Westland Milk Products has paid an average of $6.04/kg MS, after retaining 30c/kg MS to support its nutritionals growth strategy, from a total operating surplus of $6.34/kg MS.
It has slightly increased debt and has an equity to assets ratio of 49%, well within its banking covenants, chief executive Rod Quin said.
That reflected spending on additional capacity and specialist nutritional product manufacture. Westland does not isolate its basic milk price, but its EasiYo business accounted for 10.5c/kg MS while colostrum suppliers received an average 3c/kg MS.
At $6.34/kg MS its operating surplus available for payout was comparable with Fonterra’s at $6.28/kg MS.
Synlait reported a huge 161% leap in net profit after tax (NPAT) of $11.5m compared with the previous year and a 6.5% increase on the NPAT forecasts made in its prospectus.
Chief executive John Penno said profit targets were achieved thanks to margin growth and increased sales across its value-added products.
Revenue was slightly behind target due to lower than expected infant formula sales.
It paid a milk price of $5.81/kg MS with autumn premiums of 1c/kg MS, colostrum payments of 3c/kg MS, other special milk payments of 1c/kg MS and winter premiums of 3c/kg MS, bringing the average payout to suppliers to $5.89/kg MS.
