Bunge Slips To Loss In Q1 - Quick Facts

(RTTNews) - Bunge Limited (BG) said that its first-quarter net loss available to common shareholders was $27 million, compared to net income of $170 million in the same quarter last year. Net loss per share was $0.18 versus net income of $1.15 last year.

Adjusted net loss per share from continuing operations was $0.12 compared to adjusted net income of $1.15 in the year ago quarter.

Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected the company to report earnings of $1.42 per share for the quarter. Analysts' estimates typically exclude special items.

Net sales for the quarter dropped to $13.461 billion from $14.785 billion in the year ago quarter. Ten analysts estimated revenues of $15.13 billion for the quarter.

Soren Schroder, Bunge's Chief Executive Officer stated, "The first quarter was slower than expected, but our outlook for the remainder of the year is positive. Results in the quarter were primarily impacted by losses in our grain trading & distribution business that are behind us and a temporarily depressed crushing environment in China."

Drew Burke, Chief Financial Officer, stated, "We remain confident about the full year....In sugar & bioenergy, we continue to expect full-year segment results to be about breakeven and are managing the business to be free cash flow neutral. Despite dry weather during the first quarter, we expect to have sufficient cane to crush close to capacity. Due to the seasonality of the Brazilian sugarcane harvest, we expect results in this segment to be weighted toward the second half of the year."

In food & ingredients, similar to last year, the company expects each quarter to improve sequentially as it moves into seasonally stronger periods of the year and its performance improvement programs gain traction by improving its cost base through higher productivity, cost reduction and working capital management. The integration of its Altex wheat mills is going well, and it expects to extract more value from our Mexico milling operations as the year progresses.