* Q3 earnings $766 million, vs $763 million last year
* Revenues $31.9 billion, up 5 percent
April 10 (Reuters) – U.S. agribusiness and trading firm
Cargill Inc said on Tuesday quarterly earnings were
essentially even with the same period a year ago, led by its
food ingredients and applications business unit.
Minneapolis-based Cargill, one of the world’s largest
privately held corporations, reported $766 million in earnings
from continuing operations for the fiscal third quarter ended
Feb. 29, just ahead of $763 million a year earlier.
Revenue rose 5 percent to $31.9 billion.
“Cargill’s earnings strengthened in the third quarter,
totaling more than twice that earned in the first six months of
the fiscal year,” Cargill’s chief executive Greg Page said in a
statement. “Although it continues to be an unsettled year for
the global economy, we did a better job navigating the
uncertainty.”
Third-quarter results represent a bounce back after
Cargill’s second quarter profits fell 88 percent to $100 million
— the worst quarterly performance since 2001, as earnings were
hurt by investments made in equity markets and by distressed
assets amid the European debt crisis.
The third-quarter rebound was led by Cargill’s food segment.
The food ingredient businesses posted the strongest results.
Additionally, the company’s global meat businesses improved from
the second quarter. But profits overall from that business were
still well below last year’s record level due to a cyclical
downturn in the North American beef segment, Cargill said.
The company’s industrial unit earnings in the quarter were
below a year before, hurt by sharply lower demand for deicing
salt products given an exceptionally mild winter across North
America.
Cargill, which operates in 65 countries, is a leading U.S.
grain exporter, food processor, energy trader and biofuels
producer. If Cargill were a publicly listed company, its 2011
sales of $119.5 billion would have ranked No. 13 on the Fortune
500 list of largest U.S. companies.
