RIYADH: UAE food giant Agthia Group is seeking growth through acquisitions and investment in its food and beverage business, Bloomberg Television reported.
“We expect to see our growth coming from the consumer business,” said Agthia CEO Alan Smith in an interview with the news service.
“We’re going to continue to look for the right opportunities” for acquisitions with a focus on Saudi Arabia and Egypt, he added.
Higher commodity and shipping costs are forcing global food producers to raise prices or narrow margins to recover as firms emerge from the pandemic, Bloomberg said.
Smith said he’s cautiously optimistic about the global economy, and even though freight rates are set to remain high for the next 18 months, he doesn’t expect them to rise further.
In March, the Agthia CEO also said he was looking for more acquisitions, after already snapping up three new companies namely Al Foah Company, Jordan’s Nabil Foods, and Kuwait’s Al Faysal Bakery, as interest in food security increases amid the turmoil in global supply chains sparked by the health crisis.
These three deals will contribute to increasing the company’s profits, in addition to the long-term growth of the business, Mubarak Al-Mansouri, the company’s corporate affairs chief, told Al Arabiya.
Last week, Agthia posted a net profit of 67.9 million dirhams in the first half of this year, a 61 percent year-on-year jump, and revenues of 1.32 billion dirhams, a 21 percent year-on-year lift.
The firm, which is listed on the Abu Dhabi Stock Exchange, recommended a dividend to shareholders of 8.25 fils per share in line with its policy of distributing dividends on a semi-annual basis.
