FRANKFURT (dpa-AFX) - Positively received business figures and a pleasing corporate outlook put a stop to the recent slide in the shares of KWS Saat on Wednesday. The shares of the seed producer abruptly erased the losses of almost a whole month, with a gain of almost seven percent to 56.60 euros, most recently quoted at the level of the beginning of September again. As a result, they also crossed the 21- and 50-day lines for the short-term and medium-term trend.

The SDax company did well in all segments in the past fiscal year. Industry expert Charlie Bentley of analyst firm Jefferies was correspondingly positive: the seed producer reported a smaller operating loss than feared in the seasonally less important final quarter of the current fiscal year. In addition, the company's sales growth target for the new fiscal year is above its forecast, which is reassuring in view of increasing concerns about agricultural sales markets.

Warburg expert Oliver Schwarz stated that the operating profit margin had risen sharply and was even slightly better than KWS Saat's own forecast. The expert also highlighted the increase in cash and cash equivalents. Meanwhile, the outlook for the new fiscal year even seems conservative to him.

KWS Saat thus provides a counterweight in the agricultural sector to biofuel producer Verbio, which had disappointed with its earnings outlook as recently as Tuesday. High energy and raw material costs and lower sales prices had weighed heavily on the company in the past fiscal year.

KWS Saat, on the other hand, had been consistently positive about its business performance in recent months and had even raised its annual forecast twice. Nevertheless, it has been almost impossible to stop the share price from falling this year - since the beginning of 2023, investors are currently sitting on a loss of around twelve percent, while the SDax has at least gained a good five percent in this time.

The price loss from the previous record high in May 2021 is even more significant: From the just under 81 euros reached at that time, the shares have fallen back by almost a third. However, those who took advantage of the massive drop in the share price to around 39 euros at the time of the Corona crash on the stock exchange in March 2020 are currently still sitting on a gain of almost 45 percent./tav/ag/tih