For FY2025 ended Dec 31, Mainboard-listed Olam Group, reported profit after tax and minority interests of $444.1 million, representing a y-o-y increase of 414%. Excluding subsidiary Olam Agri, patmi would be $170.3 million, in contrast to a loss of $222.4 million for the previous year.
Overall turnover for FY2025 increased 19.3% y-o-y to $67 billion. Excluding Olam Agri, full-year revenue grew y-o-y by 28.8% to $29.6 billion while earnings before interest (EBIT) rose 37.9% y-o-y to $1.27 billion. The stronger performance was attributed to the pass-through of higher commodity prices in Olam Food Ingredients (OFI) as well as the reversal the Remaining Olam Group division, which reported ebit of $197.7 million from a negative ebit of $151.5 million in the previous year.
Formerly a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Olam Group, Olam Agri, valued at around US$4 billion, is in the process of being fully-acquired by the Saudi Agricultural and Livestock Investment Company (SALIC). Since 2022, SALIC has owned 35.43% of Olam Agri.
Olam recorded $120.3 million in patmi for 2HFY2025, a 214% y-o-y rise. Excluding Olam Agri, the company suffered a loss of $7.1 million for 2HFY2025.
Revenue for the second-half grew 15.3% y-o-y to $33.6 billion. Excluding Olam Agri, revenue grew 12% y-o-y to $14.3 billion while ebit rose 4% to $558.5 million.
Segmentally, revenue for the Remaining Olam Group declined by 4.9% y-o-y to $1.1 billion, while OFI’s revenue increased y-o-y by 30.6% to $28.5 billion with ebit decreasing slightly by 0.1% to $1.07 billion. Olam Agri’s revenue rose by 12.7% y-o-y to $37.4 billion but ebit dropped 9.2% y-oy to $923.5 billion.
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During the results briefing attended by The Edge Singapore, Olam Group CEO Sunny Verghese briefly explained that Olam was in the business of providing daily living essentials to customers globally. These include food, fuel, fiber and other raw materials.
He adds that he was pleased with the company’s performance. “So we diversify across food and feed, fuel, fiber [etc.] and that diversification helps us navigate the cyclicality and inherent volatility in the business, and that demonstrated by the fact that despite all of these headwinds that we face and what I described to you, we have had a very creditable performance in only having a lower operating profit [or ebit].”
OFI CEO A. Shekhar says the key to OFI’s performance was the “calculated” and "disciplined" way of managing capital and ensuring the business could fulfil customer contracts under a volatile market. “What's important here is that we are able to pass on the pricing, and that's the critical thing,” mentions Skekhar who adds that OFI also has to ensure that prices are passed on to the customer in a “fair, transparent and reasonable way”.
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Olam did not propose a final dividend for FY2025. It had earlier declared an interim dividend of two cents per share which was paid out in August 2025.
“The market is not very happy we did not pay a second half or final dividend,” says Verghese. “But in view of the ongoing priorities that we have, we want to be conservative in terms of conserving cash.”
Verghese adds that the company aims to pay special dividends from the divestment of assets arising from Olam’s reorganisation.
On the reorganisation, the company updated that approvals from all jurisdictions but one have been obtained for the proposed sale of 44.58% stake in Olam Agri to SALIC. SALIC also has the option to purchase the remaining 19.99% it does not own once the first tranche of 44.48% of shares are acquired.
In addition, the company also says that progress is ongoing in securing approvals from lenders, shareholders and regulators for sale of Olam Group’s remaining 32.4% stake in ARISE Ports and Logistics and has completed the US$500 million capital injection into OFI in H12025. Verghese says that the capital injection has helped OFI “invest in value and creative meaningful projects”.
Shares in Olam were down seven cents, or 7%, to 92 cents at around 3:28 pm on Feb 27.
