The company had made a “strategic decision” to reduce breeding activities of the fish, of which certain mass market varieties had experienced oversaturation and declining prices, in order to free up valuable resources and redeploy land for new business activities with better value generation.
Apart from the loss on disposal of the brooders, there was also an allowance for obsolete and slow-moving inventory of approximately $1.5 million which arose from an inventory profiling and assessment exercise undertaken by the company to streamline and optimise its inventory holding.
For the full year, the company registered a loss per share of 8.17 cents compared to earnings per share of 1.23 Singapore cents in FY2022. Its net asset value (NAV) per share had shed 19.8% to 34.79 Singapore cents as of Dec 31, 2023.
Despite the loss, Qian Hu posted revenue of $70.3 million for FY2023, down just 6.6% y-o-y compared to its $75.3 million earnings in FY2022.
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The company’s directors have proposed a first and final dividend of 0.3 Singapore cents per ordinary share, to be paid on April 24.
Yap Kok Cheng, Qian Hu’s CEO, says: “We are cautiously optimistic that we will be able to overcome the adverse external pressures and will persist in seizing opportunities to nurture new growth segments, develop new capabilities and become more competitive while remaining focused on our core strengths and the long-term sustainability of our business.”
Yap adds: “We are fully committed to focus on building our aquaculture and pet accessories businesses along with our other core segments while continually strengthening our balance sheet, managing risk and our business fundamentals. Qian Hu is moving towards becoming a debt-free company with higher dividend pay-outs.”
Shares in Qian Hu closed unchanged at 16.5 cents on Jan 12.
