New Zealand's largest rural services operation, PGG Wrightson, expects to continue the momentum over the next year after announcing a big turnaround in its financial performance.
It declared a net after-tax profit of $24.5 million for the past year, reversing the previous year's $30 million loss.
PGG Wrightson says most of its business operations performed strongly, and the livestock sector stood out with record returns from sales.
Managing director George Gould acknowledges that stock prices have come down since then, though the company still expects another strong year. He says it expects to hold its own in all aspects of agri-services, including its retail business, wool, livestock and real estate.
Mr Gould says its irrigation business and Agriculture New Zealand are both performing very well and are not so affected by the cyclical prices.
He says returns from the normally high-earning seeds business fell last year due to lower than expected seed sales in Australia, stemming from the wettest growing season on record there.
Repayment of Crafar farm loans expected soon
PGG Wrightson says it expects to recover loans made to the Crafar family when the sale of the Crafar farms is finalised in October.
It is one of three lenders, along with Westpac and Rabobank, who are secured creditors of the 16 North Island farms put into receivership in 2009.
Ownership of the farms is expected to transfer to the Shanghai Pengxin company in the next couple of months, now that opponents of the sale have failed in their legal bid to block it.
Mr Gould says that will clear just about all of the property loans PGGW is still holding after selling its finance arm.
He says the company's non-Crafar loans amount to about $4 million.
