Marfrig reverses injury and closes in blue in the first quarter thanks to higher prices

The food company Marfrig went from the loss to profit in the first quarter, backed mainly at better prices in North America's operations, although the overall production volume fell. The second largest beef producer in the world, Marfrig announced on Wednesday (15) that it had continued net income of R $4 million in the period, before loss of R $247,000,001 year before. As a whole, consolidated net revenues totaled R $10.1 billion from January to March, amounting to 7.6% higher year-on-year, although the slaughter volume of bovine animals fell 0.9% in the same comparison. In the report, the company attributed the result to the increase in revenues of the operation North America and the depreciation of the real in relation to the dollar, "which compensated the lowest net revenue in operation South America". The operating result of the company measured by the EBITDA (for profit before taxes, interest, depreciation and amortization) adjusted for the continued operation was R $571 million, more than the triple of the R $182 million of equal step of 2018. The adjusted EBITDA margin rose 0.4 point, to 5.7%. In total terms, the company's EBITDA in the period of R $649 million, high of 322%. The financial result, negative in R $380 million, was still better than in the immediately preceding quarter, also deficient, more in R $607 million. The result was disclosed in the Proforma model, considering the results of the operation of Nacional Benef, bought in June 2018 and Quickfood, last January. Marfrig closed in March with leverage index, measured by the ratio between net debt and EBITDA, from 2.76 times, an increase of 0.38 instead in sequential measurement.