KUALA LUMPUR (Nov 23): Boustead Plantations Bhd's net profit jumped about five-fold in the third quarter ended Sept 30, 2021 (3QFY21) to RM95.56 million from RM17.97 million amid higher crude palm oil (CPO) prices.

As a result, the group posted earnings per share of 4.27 sen from 0.8 sen, its Bursa Malaysia filing showed on Tuesday (Nov 23).

Meanwhile, the plantation group said its quarterly revenue expanded by 42.8% to RM293.77 million from RM205.68 million, boosted by increase in palm product prices that led to a profit of RM133.1 million from its operations.

For the cumulative nine months ended Sept 30, 2021, the group's profit surged to RM156.16 million from RM15.5 million reported in the same period last year while revenue grew by 32.3% to RM708.5 million from RM535.43 million.

On a quarterly basis, the group's net profit nearly doubled from RM48.38 million in the immediate preceding quarter (2QFY21) while revenue increased by 21% from RM242.78 million in 2QFY21.

Moving forward, Boustead Plantations said the prospects for the coming year are largely influenced by the initiatives to improve crop production, selling prices and ongoing Boustead Group's Reinventing Boustead strategy.

"Palm oil prices catapulted to a record high this year owing to massive fund betting on unforeseen production losses and multi-year low inventories and also supported by appreciation of crude oil prices and China's ongoing power outages," it added.

However, it warned that for the remainder of the year, there are several key risks and challenges that could swing the direction of CPO prices, such as containment of Covid-19 pandemic, global food price inflation, government policy changes and the volatility of ringgit against the US dollar.

That said, it added that despite the challenges, the post-pandemic outlook for the palm oil industry in Malaysia remains bright, backed by balanced supply and demand as well as an expected recovery from labour shortages next year.

Shares in Boustead Plantations went up 0.5 sen to 71.5 sen, giving it a market capitalisation of RM1.6 billion.