“In February 2013, the company sold 411 hectares of farmland in Romania, which is not in the company’s primary cultivation area, with a smaller loss. At the same time FirstFarms chose to write off on a few larger operational assets in the livestock (the company also has livestock farming operations in Slovakia i.e.). The total write offs constitute approximately 3 million Danish kroner (EUR400,000),” FirstFarms said in a statement.
The company had 7,600 hectares of land in Romania.
Its officials did not reveal the name of the buyer or how much they paid. Six years ago when the FirstFarms starting buying farmland in Romania, it paid EUR1,900 per hectare on average.
At that time the Danish company embarked on an aggressive farmland buying campaign and soon reached 10,000 hectares. It then decided to sell 2,000 hectares, which another Danish investor with a local presence, Ingleby, bought.
FirstFarms made EUR2.6 million revenue from agricultural production in Romania in the first nine months of 2012, 30% less than in the same time in 2011.
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)