Landkom

Ukraine-based farming concern Landkom could finally be set to fulfill its potential, having pared interim losses under new management.

For the half to April, Landkom, which lost $42.1m (£27m) and $55.7m in 2009 and 2008 respectively under previous management, reported a substantive reduction in operating losses to $4.4m ($15.2m). New CEO Vitaliy Skotsyk said the company had slashed losses partly thanks to implementing 'a change in the number of crop rotations from two to four. With two winter crops you carry all the risk in terms of weather'.

As a result, Landkom now grows two winter crops, winter wheat and rapeseed and two spring crops, soybean and maize. Significantly, some 35,000 tonnes of rapeseed was sold at $318 a tonne and investors might expect winter planting 'in excess of 25,000 hectares' for the year.

Skotsyk, who joined Landkom last year as part of a boardroom reshuffle that brought in a new finance director and two new non-executives, has the advantage of local knowledge. He is both a Ukrainian national and a agricultural sector expert, having previously been a general manager at AMACO, one of the largest suppliers of agricultural machinery in the former Soviet Union.

With a new, knowledgable team at the top, the once disastrous Landkom, practically debt-free and with $2.2m cash, looks well placed for further recovery, with research firm Edison forecasting a decline in losses to $7.4m for the year to October, ahead of an improved $4.8m loss by 2011. As such, the shares are well worth a punt for the bold.