(RTTNews) -  Friday, agriculture and ocean transportation company Seaboard Corp. (SEB: News ), said its profit for the third quarter increased from last year, as lower expenses and dispute settlement gains helped more than offset a 24% revenue decline for the period.

Third quarter net earnings attributable to the Shawnee Mission, Kansas- based company were $36.71 million, up from $32.91 million for the same period of the prior year. Earnings per share rose to $26.69 from $26.47 last year.

Net sales for the July-September period sharply declined to $854.63 million from $1.13 billion year-ago. The decline was due mainly to a $179.57 million decline in product sales of $647.256 million and a $89.6 million fall in Services sales of $176.9 million for the period.

The company's revenue decline was shared by all of operating segments - Pork, Commodity Trading and Milling, Marine and Sugar.

Net sales from the Pork segment decreased $43 million to $260.6 million from the same period last year, due to price reductions in pork products.

The company noted "flu related concerns" to be one of the reasons for lower prices in the pork market. Despite confirmations that people could not catch the influenza strain "2009 H1N1 flu", previously known as "swine flu", on consuming pork, certain markets banned U.S. pork products, impacting demands and prices.
Marine segment net sales decreased $89.2 to $165.68 million on lower cargo volumes, hit by the general "economic declines in most markets". Sugar segment also recorded $6.7 million lower sales on lower prices.

Total cost of sales and operating expenses declined to $808.15 million from $1.06 billion. The company reported a $2.68 million loss from operations compared with an income of $31.71 million last year.

Third quarter total other income revived the recently ended quarter, adding a significant $29.17 million compared with $1.27 million year-ago. A large portion of the earnings boost came from $16.79 million gains on a dispute settlement on July 2009, related to a 2005 transaction in which a portion of the company's trading operations was sold to a firm located abroad.

For the first nine months of 2009, the company's net income was $79.6 million or $64.32 per share, down from $123.9 million or $99.62 per share year-ago. Revenues dropped to $2.64 billion from $3.13 billion in the same nine-month period of 2008.

SEB finished Friday's regular trading sessions at $1,365, down 49 cents or 3.47%, on the AMEX.

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by RTT Staff Writer

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