Kenya's Sasini hurt by lower tea prices, coffee production fall

NAIROBI (Reuters) - Kenyan tea and coffee producer Sasini said on Friday its pretax profit fell 61 percent to 61.8 million shillings ($683,250) in the year ended Sep. 30, hurt by falling tea prices and lower coffee production. The company said its total revenue fell slightly to 2.76 billion shillings from 2.82 billion shillings. "The decrease in profit is largely as a result of significantly lower prices of tea and lower production volumes during the year," it said in a statement. Tea prices were depressed by oversupply of the commodity in the industry, while poor rainfall hurt its coffee output, Sasini said. It had issued a profit warning in May after first half earnings slumped. Its full-year earnings per share fell to 0.10 shillings from 0.54 shillings. It recommended a dividend payment of 0.25 shillings a share, the same as 2013. Its shares were trading 2.3 percent lower at 13.00 shillings at 0915 GMT on the Nairobi Securities Exchange. ($1 = 90.4500 Kenyan shillings)

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