Bangkok--12 May--TUF TUF reported its Q1/2008 financial result which showed healthy growth in sales and net income. Despite the presence of unfavorable factors, the company managed to achieve net income growth of 10% from the same period last year while sales also in dollar term and in Thai baht expanded by 32% and 20% respectively. Given the business prospect, the management is revising its annual sales growth target up to 20% from the earlier 12%. Mr. Thiraphong Chansiri, President of Thai Union Frozen Products PCL. (TUF) - Thailand's major processor and exporter of canned and frozen seafood, commented, “We are quite satisfied with our result that showed growth in sales and net profit. We achieve net profit of Bt578 million in the first quarter. That represents 10% increase from Bt527.7 million during the same period last year. Earning per share therefore rose to Bt0.66 from Bt0.60 last year. Sales in dollar term were up by 32% to USD478.3 million from USD361.6 million a year earlier while sales in Thai baht term up by 20% to Bt15,415.6 million from Bt12,801.5 million recorded in Q1/2007. The company’s total revenues surged by 23% to Bt15,987.6 million from Bt13,027.6 million a year ago.” “During the first quarter this year, the appreciation of Thai Baht (vs. USD), the record high oil price and the high fish prices have been the challenges to us. But we survived unscathed thanks to our ability in deploying a host of counter measures. Among them were timely and extensive foreign exchange rate risk management, tight cost control, expansion of customer base to gain market share, stringent quality control and continual introduction of new products. All led to a very positive result in form of significant sales growth. Bear in mind that this was achieved when Thai baht (vs. US dollar) was up to 9% stronger than a year ago. During the quarter, strong sales growth was seen across all of our products, in particular, tuna, shrimp, canned seafood and pet food. Satisfactory performances at our overseas subsidiaries also contributed to this positive result. In tonnage term (tonnage), sales volume surged by 19%, compared with a year ago. All in all, we are confident of our growth prospect in spite of the challenging business environment. We believe we are in a strong position to further expand our markets and hopefully gain more market shares.” "Reflecting on our performance in Q1, we have built a strong foundation to grow further. Therefore, we decide to raise our target of dollar sales growth rate to 20% for 2008. The previous target was 12% set since early this year," said the president. “In spite of the adverse impact on Thai exporters as a consequence of the dramatic appreciation of Thai baht (vs. US dollar) caused by the Bank of Thailand removing its 30% capital reserve requirement, we managed to grow with a solid performance. This would not be possible without our ongoing hedging policy to control our foreign exchange risk exposure,” added the president. As for Q1/2008 sales breakdown by product, tuna products continued to capture the biggest share at 50% share, followed by frozen shrimp (19%), canned pet food (8%) canned seafood (8%), shrimp feed (5%), canned sardine (4%), domestic sales (4%) and frozen cephalopod (2%). Major export markets remained the United States, the EU, Japan, Asia, Africa, Australia, the Middle East, Canada and Latin America. In particular, orders to the EU, Middle East, Africa and Latin America showed very strong growth. Mr. Thiraphong is also positive on the development of TUF’s shrimp antidumping (AD) review despite the preliminary AD rate of 15.3% (vs. the existing rate of 5.95%) assigned to TUF’s shrimp exports by the US Department of Commerce (USDC) earlier. He commented, “With the co-ordination by our lawyer and Thai embassy at Washington D.C, we have successfully made our appeal to USDC. The issue was acknowledged by the Department through a letter to us in mid-April. The state agency promised to re-evaluate their preliminary decision on TUF and will make appropriate changes when the final rate is released in September, 2008. Because of all these positive developments, our lawyer is very confident that the final result would be favorable to TUF and there is good chance that the rate will be competitive.” Corporate Communications Department Tel: (662) 298-0024 ext. 675 - 678 Fax: (662) 298-0024 ext. 679 Email: [email protected]