20 September 2010
MCB Agricole (FSE: 4GW1 GR) plans to expand its current land bank by 10-12% to 110,000-112,000 mt in the next 2-3 weeks, Fyodor Vlad, deputy managing director reported last week in an interview with Interfax. The company also expects to decrease its area planted with winter crops by 3.7% y-o-y to 52,000 ha and compensate it with increased soya and buckwheat planting in 2011. Ruslan Patlavskyy: Given the company’s slow progress in increasing its planted area within its land bank, which according to our estimates was below 80% last year, we see land bank expansion as neutral for MCB Agricole and do not expect the acquisition to have a substantial material effect to the company’s 2011E financials.