Ann: Half Yearly Report and Accounts , page-3

Some ruminations about the results as I sit at my computer munching on Lucky oven roasted almonds with yoghurt sultanas, yum!

Nice bit of buying in the afternoon to end with a positive close. Obviously a few people sat down at lunchtime and had a good read like I am doing now.

WA writedown:

- Is there anything left to write down in future or is this the end of the writedowns for this development? Further reading discovered that the carrying amount for the WA assets is $5m which is specifically for land and irrigation infrastructure, plant and equipment.

- As I asked earlier, what is the company's intention for the Stage 1 crop which is meant to be yielding this year? Considering they've written down the value of the orchards to $0 I presume that the crop will not be harvested.

- $60m in writedowns in less than 12 months? If WA never occurred we'd be debt free as at the end of the half year.

Underlying performance:

- For the half NPAT was $8.4m compared to a full year result of $9.5m in 2012. Impressive improvement.

Almond division:

- Projected yield of 8,850 metric tons, a 52% increase on 2012, and this doesn't include the latest orchard acquisitions.

- Almond price projection of A$6.08/kg, a 20% increase on $5.05/kg for 2012's crop.

- Costs have been contained.

- After a number of years of historically high global carry out of inventory this has to returned to more normal levels but appears set to continue dropping keeping upward pressure on almond pricing.

Food division:

- EBIT of $4m for the half compared to $6m for the full financial year 2011/12.

Dividend:

Cut from 5c in 2012 to 3c in 2013. A prudent choice to retain majority of cashflow for debt reduction but still returning some cash to shareholders.