Nature Alert: Singapore's Wilmar Q1 net profit jumps 7 times

Tuesday 13 May 2008

Singapore's Wilmar Q1 net profit jumps 7 times

Singapore's Wilmar Q1 net profit jumps 7 times

Tue May 13, 2008 4:23am IST

SINGAPORE, May 13 (Reuters) - Wilmar International, Southeast Asia's largest listed palm oil firm, said on Tuesday that its first-quarter net profit rose 590 percent, helped by record high palm oil prices and higher sale volumes.

Wilmar, which owns oil palm plantations and operates milling, crushing, refining and processing plants in Indonesia and Malaysia, said its net profit rose to $343 million in the quarter ending March, from a restated $49.7 million a year earlier.

The company also has a total of four biofuel plants in Indonesia and Malaysia, with combined annual production capacity of 1.05 million tonnes.

Wilmar is expected to post a full-year 2008 net profit of $921.3 million, against $580.4 million in 2007, according to a poll of 14 analysts by Reuters Estimates.

Wilmar made its debut on the Singapore Exchange in August 2006 following a reverse takeover of Ezyhealth Asia Pacific.

In July last year, it completed the purchase of the palm plantation and edible oils businesses belonging to Malaysia's Kuok Group, a move which doubled its plantation landbank to about 570,000 hectares.

Shares in Wilmar fell by about 22 percent in the January-March quarter, after ending last year up 122 percent. The company's stock market value stands at $22.8 billion. (Reporting by Ovais Subhani; Editing by Koh Gui Qing)

Hall of Shame for President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and the Palm Oil Industry.

Nothing can prepare one for the sight of the systematic extermination of orangutans by the government of Indonesia.

Look at the photos and news articles on these pages in the context of a statement the President made to the media on 10th December 2007.

“In the last 35 years about 50,000 orangutans are estimated to have been lost as their habitats shrank. If this continues, this majestic creature will likely face extinction by 2050,” President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said at the launch of an orangutan conservation plan at the climate talks in Bali.

“The fate of the orangutan is a subject that goes to the heart of sustainable forests … To save the orangutan we have to save the forest.”

Statements like these are most welcome, but unless backed up by action, such words fall on deaf ears within the Ministry of Forestry....who are busy granting licences to cut down the very forests the President says they should protect!

When you think you are to busy to help, please could you reflect for a moment on .........

The following extract refers to environmental problems in general. I just hope you find it as thought provoking and relevant to orangutans as I have.

"This is such a shocking and unpalatable fact that most people deny it, or they just don't want to think about it. They believe as individuals, they can do little about it, so push it to the back of their minds. But I can't do that.

When something has to be done, we need to do it. It doesn't matter how big the challenge is or how hard the solution; if I know something is wrong, and I am in a position to help, I will do my best to make it right." Duncan Bannatyne, successful British businessman.