Premia Foods Falls to Lowest Since Listing Last May After Loss

AS Premia Foods, the biggest Baltic frozen-food producer, fell to the lowest level since listing last May after it reported a wider first-quarter loss.

The stock fell as much as 6.8 percent in Tallinn and was 5.5 percent down, at 0.77 euros, at 12:54 p.m. The stock has shed 18 percent this year, compared with a 6.7 percent decline for the Nasdaq OMX Tallinn index and a 7.2 percent gain for eastern European consumer goods businesses as a whole, according to Bloomberg data.

Premia said after the end of trading yesterday that its net loss for the three months to March 31 was 1.98 million euros ($3.2 million) against 1.1 million euros a year earlier. It cited plant relocation costs in Russia and dwindling fish stocks.

Last May, shortly after listing in Tallinn, Premia acquired Russia’s OOO Khladokombinat No. 1, the second-largest ice-cream producer in St. Petersburg. The company earned 34 percent of revenue from ice-cream last year, Russia being its biggest market. Fish products, mostly sold in Finland, accounted for 38.5 percent of revenue.

To contact the reporter on this story: Ott Ummelas in Tallinn at oummelas@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Balazs Penz at bpenz@bloomberg.net