Padenga culls 4 100 crocodile skins in a month
By Staff Reporter
Padenga currently has 44 088 crocodiles hatched in 2014 and 52 326 last year in Zimbabwe.
PADENGA Holdings has culled a total 4 100 crocodile skins in the current culling season which commenced last month, and the company is confident of achieving its target cull of 46 000 crocodile skins during the current financial year.
The company’s group chief executive officer, Gary Sharp, said the first grading and sale this year was conducted early last month with a total of 3,962 skins.
He said the quality of the cull crop in the pens (crocodiles born in December 2013 and December 2012) gave Padenga confidence that it would attain its target cull of 46 000 crocodiles of 35 cm belly width average.
“To date we have culled 4 100 crocodiles skins and are confident of meeting our target of 46 000,” said Sharp at the company’s annual general meeting over a week ago.
The first half of the financial year is largely a cost accumulation period with the greater portion of culling and turnover accruing in the second half of the year.
Padenga currently has 44 088 crocodiles hatched in 2014 and 52 326 last year in Zimbabwe.
The company operates three farms, which are Kariba Crocodile Farm, Ume Crocodile Farm and Nyanyana Crocodile Farm. It also owns Lone Star Alligator Farm in Texas, United States.
Sharp said at the American operation, 1 654 medium-sized alligators and 2 455 watchband-sized alligators were harvested during the first quarter of the year and a further 7 944 alligator skins from prior year were graded and sold in the period.
“This operation currently has 9 249 animals on the ground. Of these, 4 911 will be harvested in September 2016 and 4 338 will be carried forward to 2017 to be harvested as medium sized skins of 32cm average size,” he said.
Improved crocodile skin quality grades with the right skin size profile as requested by the customer and an increase in crocodile raw skin sales volume saw Padenga recording nearly 10 percent increase in the bottom line to US$7,1 million in the year to December 2015, from US$6,5 million in 2014.
The result, according to Sharp, had been achieved notwithstanding the disappointing performance of the US operations which led to a two percent decline on revenue for the period to US$27,5 million.
“Demand remains strong for premium quality skins notwithstanding the decline in the number of tourists visiting Europe after the terrorist incidents in Paris and Brussels. High value leather accessories constitute a significant proportion of final product sales by premium luxury brands and the demand for good quality raw skins reflects this,” he said.
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