With sporadic reports of avian flu starting to cast a pall over prospects for the domestic poultry sector (only recently recovered from a costly drought), it was heartening to see a chirpy trading update from the JSE’s "big bird", Astral Foods.For the year to the end of September, Astral expects to register a "material turnaround" and fatter margins — thanks mainly to the benefit of lower feed costs coming through in the second half of 2017. The firm also encouragingly reported stable selling prices during the winter months, which hopefully also suggest a diminishing effect of cheaper poultry imports. The implied earnings range is up 65%, with the bottom line expected to be R15.92 a share, which solidly underpins the more than 10% gain in Astral’s share price over the past few days. Some market watchers had pencilled in full-year earnings of R11-R12 a share, which reiterates once again that the market should never underestimate Astral’s pragmatic and plain-speaking CEO, Chris Schutt...
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