Suedzucker sees lower annual profit on costlier sugar production

(Reuters) -Suedzucker on Monday forecast lower full-year profits and flagged a significant decline in first quarter earnings citing higher sugar production costs as well as market volatility due to the Ukraine and Middle East wars.

Europe's largest sugar producer expects earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) to decline to a range of 900 million-1 billion euros ($0.9-1.0 billion) in the 2024/2025 financial year.

It reported an 18% increase in EBITDA to 1.3 billion euros ($1.38 billion) for the past financial year of 2023/24, according to preliminary figures.

Shares in Suedzucker fell 4.4% to 12.83 euros at 16:15 GMT.

"The ongoing war in Ukraine continues to reinforce the already high volatility on the sales and procurement markets," the company said.

It was uncertain whether the negative consequences from EU's extended duty-free access for the Ukrainian agricultural imports would persist, it added.

The effects from the Middle East war that erupted in October are also difficult to assess, Suedzucker said in a statement.

It forecast group revenues for the year to come in between 10 and 10.5 billion euros, with operating group earnings in the range of 500 to 600 million euros.

This compares to revenues of 10.3 billion euros and an operating result of 950 million in the past year.

Suedzucker reported an EBITDA of 356 million euros in the first quarter of last year.

($1 = 0.9414 euros)

(Reporting by Linda Pasquini; editing by Matthias Williams and Andrey Sychev)