The Costa Group Holdings Ltd (ASX: CGC) share price is up 24% in a week. The June 2020 result was the catalyst.
What is happening with Costa?
It’s not as though the Costa share price surged more than 20% on report day, it has steadily climbed a few percent each day. It’s up more than 3% today.
After a tough period over the last couple of years, Costa seems to be turning it around.
Costa said in the result that its Australian operations have now recovered from the weather and drought challenges in 2019 and the first half of 2020.
HY20 revenue grew by 6.8% to $612.4 million and total underlying EBITDA grew by 13.7% to $93.7 million (click here to learn what EBITDA means). International underlying EBTIDA jumped 98%. Underlying net profit grew by 12% to $45.8 million. Statutory profit was $43.4 million.
Costa said that there is broad based forward momentum in its Australian portfolio with market conditions showing sizeable improvement which is driving increased earnings.
The farming giant also said that it has achieved high water security across all of its sites. That’s good news considering there is/was a severe drought going on.
The impact of the drought is estimated to have hurt underlying EBITDA by $15 million in the tomato and berry categories. Crops recovered to a full yield by May with the new Corindi (NSW) raspberry crops coming ‘on stream’ from mid-August and blackberry crop from mid-October.
Costa said that there is strong citrus export and domestic demand, along with good pricing which is encouraging for the rest of the season.
Dividend and balance sheet
The board of Costa decided to declare a dividend of 4 cents per share. Costa’s net debt was $181.7 million, bringing the leverage/debt ratio to 1.66x which was ahead of schedule.
Summary
Costa is expecting higher earnings in the second half of 2020. That’s good news for the cyclical commodity business. The best time to buy shares of a commodity business is when sentiment is really low – which has been the case since November 2019. It may be able to deliver decent returns from here, though the easy gains have probably already occurred.
A business like Vitalharvest Freehold Trust (ASX: VTH) could be a way to play Costa’s recovery. However, I prefer consistent growth from ASX growth shares, like Pushpay Holdings Ltd (ASX: PPH).
