Owned by Chinese state-owned ChemChina, the group generated sales of $7.9 billion from July to September, up 20 percent year on year. In the second quarter, growth was still at 24 percent.
Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and depreciation (EBITDA) rose 24 percent to $1.0 billion in the third quarter. In the second quarter, profits increased 39 percent.
Syngenta issued a statement on Thursday about the “increasingly difficult macroeconomic environment”. The persistent strong dollar also had a negative impact.
Nine months later, just as last year
In the first nine months of 2022, sales were $25.9 billion, representing 24 percent growth. Operating profit increased 30 percent to 4.6 billion. After just nine months, Syngenta has brought in as much EBITDA as in the whole last year.
The consistently high price level for grain had a positive impact on sales growth. Prices of important crops such as wheat rose sharply with the war in Ukraine. This increases the incentive for farmers to use Syngenta and Co.’s products to protect their crops.
In addition, Syngenta has implemented “necessary” price increases to compensate for increased costs. All business areas reportedly contributed to growth. Sales of plant protection products increased by 30 percent and seed sales by 27 percent.
The company has also grown dynamically in China’s new “domestic market”. In the January-September period, this contributed to sales of $7.1 billion (+22%).
Chinese owners
Revenues from the Modern Agriculture Platform (MAP) in China increased by 80 percent to $2.6 billion. The network supports farmers with modern solutions for climate-friendly cultivation and sales of their products.
Switzerland-based Syngenta Group is owned by the Chinese. It consists of the business units of Switzerland-based Syngenta Crop Protection, USA-based Syngenta Seeds, Israel-based Adama and Syngenta Group China.
Syngenta was taken over by the Chinese company ChemChina five years ago. In recent years, Syngenta has announced several times that it plans to return to the stock market in 2022. A secondary listing is also discussed at a later date on the Swiss exchange SIX.
If all goes well, a listing in China is possible this year. If Syngenta has to wait longer for regulatory authorities, it should work in the first half of 2023 at the latest.
The plan is to list about 20 percent of the shares that will pour $10 billion of the company into the vault. This would likely be worth about $50 billion to Syngenta.
There are also various personnel changes at Syngenta prior to the IPO. For example, after HR manager Laure Roberts retires in early 2023, Hengde Qin will replace her.
Hongsheng Liu, former President of Sinochem International, will replace Qin as chairman of Syngenta Group China. Both will report directly to CEO Erik Fyrwald.
As the MAP business gains strategic importance, Minjie Ying will be responsible for further expanding the platform in the country, in addition to her role as Head of China Seed Business. Jianbo Liu remains the MAP boss, but will report to Ying in the future.
(SDA)