No more hard (c)luck stories
ANTHONY CLARK: What’s in the wings for Astral?
After the severe drought of 2016 the group’s outlook looks plump and juicy once more
Poultry sector results — having been tarred and feathered in the past year with material slumps in poultry profitability and earnings — may be about to fly high again as the benefits of a large maize crop and firmer pricing assist earnings recovery. Astral Foods is the sector’s biggest player in the sector. It houses 35m birds in sheds and produces 5m a week for domestic consumption. Its poultry division alone is a R9.5bn annual revenue business. Domestic conditions in the poultry sector are horrific, but Astral is one of the top-performing food shares so far in 2017. I selected the stock in my top stocks portfolio at the start of the year and at the time of writing it is ahead by 22%.
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