According to the company it is going to declare an after-tax loss of $6 million for the second half of the financial year, after selling excess fish inventories. Clean Seas said that this move would pave the way to refocus its business priorities towards commercial southern bluefin tuna where considerably better margins are available.
Clean Seas chairman Hagen Stehr informed that its increasing focus on tuna involved writing down its kingfish inventories by $4.9 million to their carrying value of $38.2 million. The company was also writing down mulloway inventories by $2.2 million to a carrying value of $4.3 million.
Stehr opined that the second half result would also include the expensing of $3.7 million in tuna development costs in accordance with accounting standards. The result will include interest and financing expenses of $1.6 million and depreciation and amortisation of $1.8 million.
The company is considering diverting some resources, which would have been utilised in kingfish production and the majority of resources used in mulloway farming to its tuna business. This change is said to involve lowering kingfish fingerling production from 1.25 million to 1 million fish to ensure the tuna division operates without capacity limitations.
