Frankfurt am Main, 20. August 2014

Frankfurt am Main, August 20, 2014 - Despite the challenging business environment, Haikui Seafood has asserted itself by delivering improved profitability in the first half-year of 2014 while maintaining its strong financial position.

Haikui Seafood succeeded in raising Q2 2014 revenue by 4.8 per cent to 28.3 million Euros compared to the same period last year. However, primarily due to lower sales volume arising from keen competition and the on-going tight supply of raw materials, revenue of Haikui Seafood decreased by 15.7 per cent to 58.5 million Euros in the first six months of 2014 (H1 2013: 69.4 million Euros). Measured in Haikui Seafood's local currency RMB, revenue decreased by 13.4 per cent year-on-year.

Frozen products are again the main contributor, accounting for 80.9 per cent (H1 2013: 86.2 per cent) or 47.3 million Euros of the revenue in the first six months of 2014. Haikui Seafood's second product segment, canned products, accounted for the remaining 19.1 per cent of the revenue (H1 2013: 13.8 per cent). The 17.3 per cent increase in revenue from canned products to 11.2 million Euros is mainly attributed to higher sales of abalone products.

Nearly stable margins and improved net profit
Lower revenue and higher production costs led to a decline in gross profit by 21.1 per cent to 10.1 million Euros (H1 2013: 12.8 million Euros). The slight reduction of the gross profit margin from 18.4 per cent in the first half-year of 2013 to 17.2 per cent in the first half-year of 2014 is mainly due to the higher costs for raw materials and direct labour, which could not be fully passed on to the market.

For the same reasons, profit from operations (EBIT) decreased by 21.9 per cent to 7.6 million Euros (H1 2013: 9.7 million Euros). The EBIT margin lost approximately one percentage point, decreasing to 13.0 per cent in the first half-year of 2014 (H1 2013: 14.0 per cent).

However, net profit grew by 3.2 per cent to 6.1 million Euros (H1 2013: 5.9 million Euros) resulting in a net profit margin of 10.4 per cent, up by 1.9 percentage points compared to the corresponding previous period. This positive development is mainly due to foreign exchange losses recognised in the first half-year of 2013 compared to a foreign exchange gain recognised in the first six months of 2014.

Well positioned for the future
Haikui Seafood's financial situation remains very strong: Equity has increased to 161.8 million Euros as at June 30, 2014 (December 31, 2013: 155.4 million Euros) while the equity ratio has slightly improved to 97.6 per cent (December 31, 2013: 97.4 per cent). Furthermore, Haikui Seafood maintains a healthy cash position of 51.2 million Euros at the end of the reporting period (December 31, 2013: 49.8 million Euros).

Outlook for the full year 2014 maintained
Not unexpectedly, the market conditions thus far in 2014 have proven to be challenging for many Chinese seafood processors. Keen competition for raw materials and labour has driven up production costs while the quest to preserve and/or gain greater market share amidst a weak, fragile and uncertain global economy has curtailed efforts to adjust selling prices upwards. However, the management of Haikui Seafood does not anticipate the market conditions to further deteriorate for the remaining half of 2014.

Taking the aforesaid factors into consideration, the 9-month revenue in 2014 is expected to be broadly comparable with the same period in 2013 but with margins anticipated to be slightly lower than H1 2014 and 9M 2013. Despite uncertainties associated with the development of selling and raw material prices, the management of Haikui Seafood expects a strong fourth quarter compared to 2013 and is maintaining its full year 2014 target of delivering a revenue growth of at least 5 to 10 per cent measured in RMB terms with an EBIT margin in the range of 11 and 13 per cent.

With regard to the investments, Haikui Seafood recently completed the detailed planning of its new factory in Dongshan. The construction will start in the third quarter 2014. Completion would take about 1.5 years with contributions from the new facility foreseen for 2016.

The full half-year report 2014 of Haikui Seafood AG is available on the company's website under:
http://www.haikui-seafood.com/investor-relations/publications/reports/

About Haikui Seafood AG
Haikui Seafood processes fish and seafood for the Chinese and international markets. Its products range includes frozen or canned fish and seafood, produced from a large variety of species of raw fish and seafood, including prawn, crab, various fish species and shellfish as well as cephalopods. Clients of Haikui Seafood are distributors in China and overseas, located mainly in Asia, the U.S. and Europe. Haikui Seafood employs 666 permanent employees and 836 additional temporary workers as of June 30, 2014. The company has an annual processing capacity of more than 34,000 tonnes (output). The processing facilities are located in the South-East of China on Dongshan Island, Zhangzhou, Fujian Province. Haikui Seafood operates a streamlined supply chain including self-owned processing facilities, in-house research and product development capacities as well as warehousing and cold storage facilities while simultaneously cooperating closely with raw goods suppliers.

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