COMPANY COMMENT
Future looks bright for Astral as shares soar
While MTN’s latest payment-break offer to snare cash-strapped consumers deserves caution
The share price of Astral Foods, the big bird of the JSE’s poultry sector, have plumped up more than 10% in the JSE’s first few trading days of 2017. The share price is still well off the record high of R195 (seen in early 2015), but the price has shifted reassuringly away from the R90 levels to which it fell in early 2016. The trading pattern suggests the deluge in various northern provinces of SA has broken the prolonged drought that has caused feed prices to rocket to painful levels. It will, however, still be a while before local poultry operations benefit from lower input costs. In the meantime, the increased imports of chicken from the US and Europe will continue to undermine operating margins — unless trade unions, appalled at the prospect of further job losses, can convince the government to ruffle the feathers of key trading partners with additional measures of poultry protectionism. The tariff-free import of 65,000 tonnes of US chicken was the first in 15 years to be lande...
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