M.P. Evans Group PLC (MPE.L) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

We've got off to a great start in 2025. We've seen an increase in crop. We've seen some very healthy pricing. So prices in the first 2 months of 2025 have been around $870 per tonne. And to put that in context, that compares to around $820 per tonne for all of 2024. So that's a great start.

Hello, you're watching Proactive. I'm joined today by Matthew Coulson. He's the CEO of M.P. Evans. Matthew, very good to speak with you today. And of course, good to speak when you're reporting record results for 2024. Take us through some of the highlights and how you achieved it, Matthew.

Yes, absolutely. And it's good to talk to you, Stephen, and we're very pleased to be announcing our 2024 results today. It's been a fantastic year for the group and indeed record results. So we were able to produce once again 1.6 million tonnes of crop during the course of 2024, and we were particularly helped by some very strong pricing during the course of this year. And that meant, as I say, we achieved a record profit for 2024. That meant that earnings per share were up by just about 2/3 compared to last year. And of course, as a result of that, we once again increased our dividends to shareholders. So dividends for 2024 of 52.5p, and that's just another step forward in our 30-plus years of progressive dividends to shareholders.

Matthew, you point out in the press release that you processed 1.6 million tonnes of crop, and that was despite some weather-related challenges over the period and planting continues as you increase your hectarage.

That's exactly right. And you're right to point out some of the weather-related challenges in Indonesia. So Indonesia as a whole, interestingly, actually reported very rarely a small decrease in total crop across the country. So I think that puts our result in context and actually demonstrates what a great result it's been for us. But also when you come to mention planting, we are continuing to plant for future growth, and we planted more hectares, both in Sumatra and in East Kalimantan during the course of this year. And very importantly, we agreed with our sustainability consultants, there was an opportunity to do more planting in one of our recently acquired plantations in East Kalimantan just towards the end of this year. So we didn't do much planting there in 2024, but we're very excited about planting there in 2025.

Are you talking about Musi Rawas there?

No, apologies. That's our project called ABK in East Kalimantan, where we'll be really getting stuck into some planting in 2025. But you're right to also point out Musi Rawas in South Sumatra, where we continue to plant more and more hectares. We went past 10,000 hectares in '23. We got very close to 11,000 hectares in '24, and we expect to bust through that 11,000 hectares in early '25.