What: Amira Nature Foods Ltd. (NYSE: ANFI), a international producer of packaged foods and specialty rice with more than 200 SKU's selling in over 60 countries, is moving 16% higher in early Thursday trading. The company announced fourth quarter results of its fiscal 2015 and bullish investors liked what they saw -- and investors selling shares short didn't.
So what: Amira Nature Foods recorded respective revenue and adjusted EBITDA increases of 22% and 25% to $226 million and $6.6 million compared to last year's fourth quarter. The company's adjusted EBITDA margin reached nearly 15% and adjusted earnings-per-share checked in at $0.52 compared to last year's $0.47 and average Wall Street estimates of $0.49.
"Our strong fiscal fourth quarter and full year performance reflects increased demand for our products across categories and geographies. We are seeing revenue growth around the world – in India, our important home market, and across the emerging markets geographies of Middle East, Africa and Asia." said Karan A Chanana, Amira's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, in a press release. "We are also seeing signs of continued strength in our smaller, but rapidly expanding developed world business, where we entered into new relationships in the UK, Continental Europe and the United States. "
Now what: Part of the driving force behind Amira Nature Food's pop in stock price this morning could be bears covering their short positions after a strong quarter. The current short interest on the company is 28% with about 4.49 shares short as of 6/30/2015.
Amira expects double digit fiscal 2016 revenue and adjusted EBITDA growth while maintaining its full year guidance of $1 billion of revenue and $150 million of adjusted EBITDA. Amira generated record full year and quarterly revenue, adjusted EBITDA and adjusted EPS, and has eleven consecutive quarters of double digit revenue and profit growth as a public company.
As the company continues to build out distribution around the globe and capitalize on consumer demand for healthier and more premium rice, its overall business should continue to improve. The company's stock price has been trending higher since early February and with improving quarterly results and a slew of bears potentially covering short positions, the stock could continue higher although I personally will be watching this one from the sidelines.
