Brazil’s Fertilizantes Heringer reported a fourth-quarter 2023 net loss of R$24.6 million on net revenues of R$1.43 billion, an improvement over the year-ago loss of R$70.2 million and R$1.6 billion, respectively. EBITDA was a loss of R$34.8 million versus a loss of R$86.3 million.
Despite the financials still being in the red, fourth-quarter sales volumes soared 58.4% to 679,028 mt, up from the year-ago 428,712 mt. Deliveries to coffee farmers remained the big seller for the company, but deliveries were also much improved for soybeans.
Most of the fourth-quarter increase was for conventional fertilizers, with volumes up 111.9% to 462,000 mt from 218,000 mt, while specialty edged up only 2.8%, to 217,000 mt from 211,000 mt.
Full-year fertilizer sales volumes were even better, up 63.3% to 2.94 million mt from 2023’s 1.4 million mt. Conventional products moved up 93.1%, to 1.52 million mt from 788,000 mt, while specialty were up 25.1%, to 772,000 mt from 617,000 mt.
Heringer announced that it would be making some changes in specialty fertilizers in 2024. Fernando Maeda, Head of Finance & Controller, said in an April 1 earnings call that some products would leave the specialty portfolio, while others would be added. And going forward, the company will be calling the segment premium products instead of specialty.
Despite posting an improved second-half, financials for the year moved further into the red. The full-year net loss was up 139.8%, to R$361 million on revenues of $5.3 billion, compared with 2023’s loss of R$150.6 million and $5.7 billion, respectively. EBITDA declined to a loss of R$322.1 million from a loss of R$26.3 million.
“I’d like to remind you of the first half when we were more impacted on our EBITDA and the main reason was the constant decline in prices that we had at the beginning of the year, basically, as a result of a decline that started in March 2022, which only ended in June of 2023,” Maeda told analysts. After that, he said prices have remained relatively stable and the company began presenting more positive margins.
Heringer
said fertilizer deliveries to the Brazil market totaled 45.8 million mt in
2023, up 11.6% over 2022, supported by all-time high imports of 39.4 million mt.
Domestic production fell by 8.8% from 2022, to 6.8 million mt.