ADM Romania Trading, part of the US-held ADM group, made more than RON3.3 billion (EUR746 million) revenue from grain trade in 2016, but posted more than EUR7 million losses, according to publicly available data. Last year was the seventh in the past decade in the red for the Romanian unit of the US group.
“Seven years out of ten in the red should draw the attention of the tax authorities. Any sane person shuts down the business after several years in the red because they are not doing volunteer work nor are they an NGO. As an economist, my explanation for these losses is they’re exporting profits,” tax consultant Valentina Saygo told ZF.
Traders’ business relies on resale and does not incur the same amount of risk as production business does. ADM, the leader of the grain exporters in Romania, only has 77 employees. It posted cumulated losses of EUR38 million in the past five years.
Swiss-held Ameropa Grains, the second leading grain trader by revenue in 2016, did not post losses in any of the last five years.
US-owned Cargill posted losses in four of the last five years, accumulating about RON263 million in 2012-2016, according to publicly available data.
“Were they in the red, they wouldn’t be operating. No one forces them to buy at anything other than the price they like, price on top of which they can add a markup,” Dimitrie Musca, owner of Combinatul Agroindustrial Curtici in Arad, told ZF.
Grain trade in Romania is dominated by foreign-held companies and few Romanian-owned traders like Brisegroup, Cerealcom Dolj and Rodbun can find a place among them. The three Romanian companies were in the black in 2016, according to the Finance Ministry data. Other foreign traders, like Glencore and Monsanto were in the black, too.
(English verison by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)