Milkiland to resume cheese deliveries to Russia

Four Ukrainian cheese production plants, including Milkiland’s (MLK PW) largest, were cleared to export cheese to Russia on Friday, according to a statement by Rospotrebnadzor, Russia’s consumer rights watchdog. The ban was launched on February 8 and lasted a hundred days total.

Yegor Samusenko: Though the “hundred day cheese war” seems evenly split over the first and second quarters, Milkiland management said during their 1Q12 results conference call that the impact on sales was more significant in April than in February and March (1Q12 cheese segment results were better than we expected). This suggests 2Q12 results will be weaker than 1Q12. The recent developments are already accounted for in our projections for Milkiland’s EBITDA of EUR 38 mln in FY2012, which we upgraded after Rospotrebandzor said the cheese war was nearing an end a month ago (see our report dated April 18). This puts the stock at 3.8x on EV/EBITDA 2012.