Amira Nature Foods' CEO Discusses F2Q 2014 Results

Amira Nature Foods Ltd. (ANFI) F2Q 2014 Earnings Conference Call November 11, 2013 4:30 PM ET

Operator

Greetings and welcome to the Amira Nature Foods’ Second Quarter 2014 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A brief question-and-answer session will follow the formal presentation. (Operator Instructions) As a reminder, this conference is being recorded.

It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Ms. Katie Turner of ICR. Thank you, Ms. Turner, you may begin.

Katie Turner - Managing Director, ICR

Good afternoon everyone and welcome to Amira Nature Foods’ second quarter fiscal year 2014 earnings conference call. On the call today are Karan Chanana, Amira’s Chairman and Chief Executive Officer; Ashish Poddar, Chief Financial Officer; and (Anil Chawla), Vice President, Legal.

By now everyone should have access to the earnings release which went out today at approximately 4:00 PM Eastern Time. If you have not had a chance to review the release, it’s available on the Investor Relations portion of Amira’s website at www.amirafoods.com. This call is being webcast and a replay will be available on the company’s website.

Before I begin, we would like to remind everyone that prepared remarks contain forward-looking statements and management may make additional forward-looking statements in response to your questions. Such statements involve a number of known and unknown risks and uncertainties, many of which are outside of the company’s control that could cause future results, performance or achievements to differ significantly from the results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Important factors that could cause or contribute to such differences include risks detailed in the company’s public filings with the SEC and those mentioned in the earnings release.

You should note that the company’s actual results may differ materially from those projected in the statements due to a variety of factors affecting the business, except as required by law, the company undertakes no obligation to update any forward-looking or other statements herein, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise.

Also in the company’s earnings release and in today’s prepared remarks, we include EBITDA, adjusted net working capital and net debt which are non-IFRS financial measures. A reconciliation of these non-IFRS measures to their most directly comparable IFRS financial measures are included in the company’s press release issued earlier today and it’s also posted on the company’s website.

With that, I would like to turn the call over now to Karan Chanana, Chairman and CEO.

Karan Chanana - Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Thanks, Katie. Good afternoon everybody. Thank you for joining us on today’s call. I will provide a brief overview of our financial highlights and provide you with an update on our business and growth initiatives. Then Ashish will review the financial results for the quarter and fiscal year-to-date and discuss our guidance for fiscal 2014. After that, we will open up the call for your questions.

We are pleased to report another strong quarter for Amira. In the second quarter, our revenue increased 36.1% driven by growth both in India and internationally. Our consistent top line growth underscores our success in continually adding new customers and expanding our business as the growing global demand for our premium products and offerings including our core basmati rice in addition to our expanding product portfolio of ready-to-eat snacks, meals and complementary products.

A strong EBITDA growth, which increased 38.1% compared to the prior year quarter highlights our ability to leverage our operating cost across higher sales volume along with the benefit from growing economies of scale. We are in a strong position as we begin the second half of fiscal 2014 and we remain on track to achieve our annual guidance and deliver another record year.