Fyffes posts record 2020 loss amid melon and mushroom asset charges

Fyffes posts record 2020 loss amid melon and mushroom asset charges

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Fyffes posts record 2020 loss amid melon and mushroom asset charges

Tropical fruits group Fyffes swung into a record loss of almost €170 million last year as it was forced to take large impairment charges against its melon and mushroom businesses amid the Covid-19 pandemic and group restructuring, The Irish Times reports.

The Dublin-based – but Japanese-owned – company also disclosed in its latest annual report, filed with the Companies Registration Office in recent days, that its long-standing executive chairman David McCann and finance director Tom Murphy, shared €7.46 million in exit payments as they left the company last year.

The loss for 2020 compared with an almost €20 million profit for the previous year. It was driven as the Fyffes took a €62.8 million impairment charge against its Canadian mushrooms assets before selling the unit, called Highline Produce Ltd, to its immediate parent Summit Fresh Produce Ltd for a nominal one Canadian dollar.

Tokyo-based conglomerate Sumitomo bought Fyffes four years ago in a €751 million deal, ending the company’s 35 years on the Irish stock market. The Japanese group holds the investment through Summit Fresh Produce.

Fyffes, best known for its banana, melon and pineapple distribution operations, ventured into the North American mushroom business in April 2016 through its acquisition of Highline Produce in a deal that was worth the equivalent of €97.7 million at the time. It followed up months later with the €40 million purchase of another Canadian firm, All Seasons Mushroom, and carried out further deals growing the business under Sumitomo.

A spokeswoman for Fyffes said that a subsequent review of the mushroom business determined that it should be managed separately as it is “fundamentally different” to the tropical fresh produce operation, “requiring a different approach to farming, production, financing and marketing”, according to The Irish Times.

Some €147.3 million of Highline loans to Fyffes subsidiaries were repaid in March 2021, according to the company. Separate accounts for Summit show that it pumped 189.7 million Canadian dollars (€127.2 million) into Highline around the same time, having received a capital injection from a Cayman-based company higher up the corporate tree.

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