Two years after the company went public, $20 billion (€16.89bn) US oilseed giant Bunge declares a regular quarterly cash dividend of $0.11 per share following swiftly on from strong second quarter earnings announced in July this year.
Although the second quarter results were considerably boosted by a gain of $111 million from the sale of its Brazilian soy ingredients unit to the newly formed soy company Solae - Bunge's joint venture with DuPont - income rose 42 per cent to $71 million, or 71 cents a share.
Analysts suggest this is a company to watch. A recent article on CBS MarketWatch reported that Conrad Hermann, a fund manger for the Franklin Templeton Flex Cap Growth Fund, was drawn to Bunge in his quest for stocks that could be priced incorrectly on the market.
"We're looking forward to what the drivers of growth may be. The current market price may not be reflecting growth," Hermann told CBS MarketWatch.
According to Hermann, Bunge is only just beginning to get noticed in the investment community. "It's similar to Archer Daniels Midland, but this is a company that's really only half the valuation of Archer Daniels," he said. Shares are trading at 10 times earnings based on this year's forecast, versus the 20 times that Archer Daniels shares are trading.
Elsewhere, in a recent article in the Canadian newspaper the Globe and Mail fund manager Eric Bushell said Bunge held an increasing interest because Bunge is "the dominant player in Brazil and Argentina where soya acreage is increasing at 10 per cent a year". Soya is the fastest-growing feed crop, he said. Bunge is also the largest fertiliser producer in Brazil.