Industry News       English French Dutch Spanish German Russian Italian Portuguese Portuguese Danish Greek Romanian Ukrainean Chinese Polish Korean
Logo_German Slogan_German


Neues von Castle Malting in Zusammenarbeit mit e-malt.com German
17 May, 2023



Malting news World: United Malt reports slightly better than expected half-year results

Takeover target United Malt says there has been a big shift in beer tastes as lagers and pilsners come back into favour and the thirst for pale ale wanes, the Financial Review reported on May 17.

United Malt boss Mark Palmquist remarked on flat craft beer sales in North America, where brewers were finding it hard to hire workers and having to pay more for labour. He said some craft operators had cut back opening hours in the lead up to summer in the northern hemisphere.

“So we’re just not getting the same amount of time in front of the customer that we have experienced in the past,” he said.

Mr Palmquist said the speciality malt mix required by customers in some of United Malt’s biggest markets was “changing in front of our eyes”.

“There’s a kind of blast to the past where we’re seeing more lagers and pilsners as being a growth area, so it changes the mix for us on the specialty malts. That means a little bit less pale ale,” he said.

United Malt expects a pick-up in malt sales to the craft beer sector as the weather warms up in North America, despite new figures showing overall US beer sales were down 3 per cent in 2022 and the craft segment was flat.

The United Malt share price was up slightly to A$4.40 on May 17, but still well below the A$5-a-share cash offer it received from Malteries Soufflet, part of Soufflet Group, in March.

Malteries Soufflet, backed by European agricultural investor InVivo and KKR, is continuing due diligence after lobbing a near-A$2 billion non-binding and indicative bid for the company.

The process has involved visiting United Malt’s production hubs in the UK, North America and Australia, and sessions with United Malt management.

Mr Palmquist said United Malt would not need to raise additional capital despite relying on covenant amendments from its banks as it works away at bringing down a high net debt to earnings ratio affected by high barley prices and inventories.

United Malt reported underlying first-half earnings of A$52.7 million on May 17 and continues to count on a much stronger second half to hit full-year earnings guidance of A$140 million to A$160 million.

The half-year result was slightly better than expected after the company issued an earnings downgrade on April 27 on the back of weaker than expected first quarter sales.

Analysts at Jefferies said the first-half result was poor but should not be a deal-breaker for Malteries Soufflet.





Zurück



E-malt.com, the global information source for the brewing and malting industry professionals. The bi-weekly E-malt.com Newsletters feature latest industry news, statistics in graphs and tables, world barley and malt prices, and other relevant information. Click here to get full access to E-malt.com. If you are a Castle Malting client, you can get free access to E-malt.com website and publications. Contact us for more information at marketing@castlemalting.com .














We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. If you continue to use this site we will assume that you are happy with it.     Ok     Nein      Privacy Policy   





(libra 0.8320 sec.)