Plantations giant SD Guthrie Bhd is on track for a bumper FY2025 after its net profit for the first three quarters sailed past the RM2 billion mark.
The stellar performance prompted a number of research houses to upgrade their calls and target prices for the world’s largest palm oil producer by acreage.
SD Guthrie, formerly known as Sime Darby Plantation Bhd, has already met 80% of the consensus’ full-year forecast with three months left of the year.
Its net profit for the third quarter ended Sept 30 (Q3 FY2025) rose 22% to RM935 million from RM766 million a year ago, on the back of land sales and higher downstream sales, it said in a bourse filing yesterday.
For the nine months of FY2025, net profit surged 44.2% to RM2.01 billion from RM1.39 billion a year earlier while revenue increased 5.6% to RM15.4 billion from RM14.57 billion.
The company’s Q3 net profit was given a boost after it booked RM435 million as its share of a land sale for an industrial park in Negeri Sembilan.
The group had disposed 1,195 acres to Eco Business Park 7 Sdn Bhd, its industrial park joint venture with Eco World Development Group Bhd (EcoWorld) and Negeri Sembilan state agency NS Corp.
The tri-partite venture is 55% owned by EcoWorld, 30% by SD Guthrie, and 15% by NS Corp.
Analysts said the group’s outlook for 2026 have been boosted by elevated palm oil prices and industrial land development.
AmInvestment Bank (AmInvest) raised SD Guthrie’s FY2026F average CPO price assumption to RM4,400 per tonne from RM4,300 per tonne.
“We believe that the roll-out of the B50 biodiesel policy in the second half of 2026 in Indonesia would support CPO prices,” it said in a note today.
The bank said SD Guthrie would be able to execute its land monetisation exercise well and reckons that gains on the disposal of its landbank are sustainable going forward.
“Hence, we have imputed disposal gains of RM500 million each in SD Guthrie’s bottomline from FY2025F to FY2027F,” it added.
AmInvest also upgraded its call to “buy” from “hold” and raised its target price (TP) to RM6.20 per share from RM4.89 previously.
RHB Research has maintained its “buy” call and raised its TP to RM6.95 per share from MYR6.10 previously, a 30% upside from its current price.
The research house also raised its FY2025F-FY2027F earnings forecasts by 35.7%, 39% and 26.7% respectively.
CIMB Investment Bank Bhd reaffirmed its bullish view with a raised target price of RM6.01, highlighting “triple tailwinds” from stronger palm oil prices, robust land monetisation, and solid environmental, social, and governance (ESG) positioning.
SD Guthrie’s shares closed 7 sen or 1.3% higher at RM5.35, valuing the group at RM37 billion.
