Cherkizovo expects revenue growth to exceed 12% in 2024

MOSCOW. March 20 (Interfax) - Cherkizovo Group , one of Russia's leading meat producers, expects double-digit revenue growth this year.

"In terms of revenue growth, we are certainly aiming for double-digit growth. One can say that this is more than 12%," the group's director of strategy, Yevgeny Naumtsev said in a conference call on 2023 results on Gazprombank Investments' Telegram channel on Tuesday.

The growth will be driven by the group's new assets, at which Cherkizovo carried out a major investment program last year, he said. "A large amount of meat should yield its result," Naumtsev said.

As for net profit and EBITDA, the group wants to maintain the level achieved in 2023, he said.

"By the financial statements it's evident that there is good, significant progress there, and success for us will be to at least hold at those same positions. We realize that there will be fairly heavy pressure on production costs, because the cost of packaging, the cost of logistics, fuel and lubricants, everything will squeeze. But we want to at least hold at those positions of business profitability," Naumtsev said.

He also said that the company does not currently have specific plans for a secondary public offering.

"We're watching the market, we're a fairly financially stable company. Potentially in the second half of the year we might be interested in attracting more retail investors in order to increase the free float. But no more than that. We have not determined any parameters for ourselves, we'll go by the situation on the market in the second half of the year," Naumtsev said. Cherkizovo's free float is currently about 3%.

Asked about the prospects of pork exports to China, he said Cherkizovo wants to at least secure certification for exports to this country this year.

Cherkizovo reported revenue to IFRS up 23% to 226.7 billion rubles in 2023 from 184.3 billion rubles in 2022. The group's adjusted EBITDA grew to 49.96 billion rubles from 30.165 billion rubles, and net profit more than doubled to 33 billion rubles from 14.9 billion rubles.