Pilgrim’s Pride beats revenue estimates despite Mexican market troubles

GREELEY — Pilgrim’s Pride Corp. (Nasdaq: PPC) recorded revenues north of $3 billion last quarter, but missed earnings-per-share estimates.

The Greeley-based chicken producer posted revenues of $3.06 billion in the last three months of 2019, a 15 percent increase since that same period in 2018, according to its earnings report released Thursday afternoon. That beat Wall Street consensus estimates by $170 million, according to data compiled by Seeking Alpha.

However, its non-adjusted earnings-per-share figure of 14 cents missed analysts expectations by 12 cents. Quarterly net income totaled $92 million, compared with a loss of $7.3 million in the same period a year ago.

In a prepared statement, CEO Jayson Penn said chicken commodity prices were more favorable in the period than in the fourth quarter of 2018, but broader worries in the Mexican economy for the quarter drove prices down below expectations.

Mexican consumers buoyed Pilgrim’s Pride earnings over the summer after Mexican tariffs on American pork, placed after the U.S. put its own tariffs on various imports, drove up the price for the protein.

Pilgrim’s said it had a net income of $455.9 million over all of calendar year 2019, compared with $247.9 million in 2018. Revenues in 2019 topped $11.4 billion, up from $10.94 billion the prior year.

JBS USA, the beef and pork-producing sister company to Pilgrim’s Pride, said it would buy a packing company for $238 million earlier this month. The two companies are both subsidiaries of Brazil-based JBS SA.

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