S.Africa's Afgri FY headline EPS up 6 pct

JOHANNESBURG, (Reuters)

South Africa's agricultural service group Afgri AFRJ.J on Wednesday posted a 6 percent rise in full-year earnings, boosted by better performance of its grain storage and food units and forecast more improvements.

Afgri said headline earnings per share for the year to end-June rose to 78.6 cents compared with 74.4 cents in the previous year, at the top of its own forecast of a 3-6 percent rise in headline earnings.

Headline earnings are the main profit gauge in South Africa and exclude certain one-off, financial and non-trading items.

"Following the global recession Afrgi has emerged a stronger and more aligned business, with a clear vision of the future which includes the grain value chain, expansion into the food sector and Africa, whilst remaining committed to South Africa," said Chief Executive Chris Venter.

Afgri said its silos contained nearly 2 million tonnes of grain at the end of June, following the third successive year of a large maize crop.

"Unless significant opportunities arise to export maize from South Africa, these higher stock levels will be stored for a longer period of time, allowing the Grain Storage division to sustain its current levels of profitability," it said.

The company said, however, that lower prices resulting from the large crop could hamper growth in its retail stores and equipment sales, while the expansion of the group's poultry operations should benefit the foods segment.

South Africa forecasts that it will harvest 13.094 million tonnes of maize in the 2009/10 seasons.

Afgri said profitability of its financial services unit, which returned to profit during the financial year to end-June, should be maintained, if not improved, following restructuring and cost cutting measures.

Afgri said it had 690 million rand ($94 million) in cash at the end of the financial year, up 43 percent on the comparable period.

The company declared a final cash dividend of 17.15 cents per share, bringing the total dividend for the year to 41.30 cents per share, above the previous year's 36.40 cents.