Western Australia’s two listed pearl producers have reported mixed financial results this month, with Atlas Pacific returning to profit and Atlantic suffering another loss.
Atlas Pacific, which has pearl farms in Indonesia, reported a net profit of $1.96 million for the year to December 2005, compared with a loss of $0.59 million in the previous year.
It said the main factor in the better result was the improved quality and number of pearls produced and sold during 2005. Sales increased to $9.0 million in 2005 from $5.2 million in the previous year.
The company said the consistency of pearl colour during 2005 was exceptional with 99 per cent of pearls harvested being in the white to silver colour range.
Australian producers, led by the privately owned Kailis and Paspaley groups, have always dominated premium pearl production but operators in other regions are progressively lifting pearl quality by implementing more sophisticated breeding and growing techniques. Atlas Pacific said its strategy was to make each of its operations more specialised.
The news was not so good for Atlantic, which is developing pearl farms in Myanmar, Burma.
The company reported a net loss of $249,000 for the half-year to December 2005 on revenue of $641,000. That’s down from the net loss of $404,000 in the previous corresponding period.
The company, under chairman and majority shareholder Joe Rotondella, said the grow-out of its hatchery ‘spat’ continues to be a problem. It has implemented changes to its hatchery operations which “marginally” increased survival rates.
The board said it was seeking third party investment and was committed to getting the company into a positive cash flow.
