ADM Fiscal Year Net Little Changed
NEW YORK - Feb 4/14 - SNS -- Archer Daniels Midland Company (ADM) reported net earnings of $374 million on sales of $24,143 million for the fourth quarter ending December 31, compared to a net if $540 million on sales of $24,921 million during the same three-month period the previous year.
This lifted net earnings for the full fiscal year to $1,342 million on sales of $89,804 million, compared to $1,375 million on sales of $90,559 million during the 2012 fiscal year.
ADM Chairman and CEO Patricia Woertz said, "Lower corn costs and improved ethanol margins helped support a significant improvement in our Corn business. Oilseeds performance was driven by our ability to meet robust global demand for meal and by improved biodiesel results in North America and Europe.
"However, our Ag Services business was impacted by the slow farmer-selling of corn and challenges in international merchandising."
Operating profit for the oilseeds division was $478 million in the fourth quarter, up $67 million from the same period one year earlier.
Crushing and origination operating profit was $252 million, comparable to last year's strong quarter. ADM's North America soybean crushing operations had strong margins as they processed record volumes amid solid domestic and export demand.
South American earnings improved on strong crushing and origination results and solid contributions from ADM's crushing facility in Paraguay.
Refining, packaging, biodiesel and other generated a profit of $168 million for the quarter, up $118 million on strong performance across the food-ingredient businesses and improved biodiesel results in North America and Europe.
Cocoa and other results declined as the peanut business delivered lower earnings than the very strong performance in the year-ago quarter.
In addition, the cocoa business saw negative mark to market timing effects increase by $15 million from the year-ago period. However, the underlying cocoa business has improved.
Oilseeds results in Asia for the quarter were up $4 million from the same period last year, principally reflecting ADM's share of the improved results from Wilmar International Limited.
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