São Paulo – The world’s leading meat processing company, the Brazil-based JBS, announced this Thursday (22nd) that it posted losses of 75.7 million reals (US$ 41.5 million) in 2011. According to a press statement, CEO Wesley Batista ascribed the performance to 833.3 million reals worth of losses incurred by poultry unit Pilgrim’s. Had it not been for the unit’s poor performance, JBS would have profited 482.6 million reals (US$ 265.1 million). Last year, the group posted revenues of US$ 61.8 billion, 12.9% more than in the preceding year.
In spite of the losses, the 2011 results were 74.1% better than 2010’s, a year in which the company posted losses of 292.8 million reals (US$ 160.8 million).
According to the balance sheets, 75% of revenues originated from foreign sales and 25% from exports, which reached US$ 9.581 billion in 2011. The leading importers of JBS’ products during the year were Mexico, which accounted for 14.1% of the company’s exports, followed by Africa and the Middle East (13.3%), Japan (13%), China, Hong Kong and Vietnam (12.5%), Russia (7.5%), South Korea (7.5%), the European Union (6.1%), Canada (4.8%) and Taiwan (2.6%).
In 2010, sales to Africa and the Middle East were equivalent to 17.8% of the company’s exports. During that year, countries in these two regions were the leading buyers for JBS, followed by Mexico, Japan and Russia. In 2010, JBS posted US$ 8.5 billion in export revenues.
*Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum
