Strong demand for insecticides drove Amvac’s Q3 sales

Strong demand for insecticides boosted American Vanguard’s (Amvac) sales by 8% to $73.8 million in the third quarter of 2011. Net income increased by 28% to $4.6 million. Sales for nine months were improved by 33% to $221.6 million, and net income was up by 120% to $15.6 million.

Strong performance reflects the excellent positioning of companies’ product portfolio, especially the broad range of insecticides. In granular soil insecticides, Amvac continue to expand international sales penetration with Mocap® and Nemacur®, and has successfully captured additional business with Thimet® in peanuts and sugarcane replacing a competing product that has been withdrawn from the U.S. market.

Recently, Amvac has been seeing considerable interest in many products for the domestic corn market. In June the company announced a significant agreement with Monsanto for the co-marketing of post-emergent corn herbicide Impact® in conjunction with Monsanto’s Roundup® Ready glyphosate program (AgroNews 2011-06-22). Amvac is also seeing corn growers show greater interest in the yield enhancement benefits of corn soil insecticides for protection of their crops in areas where pest pressure is not adequately handled by the use of genetic defenses alone. As the supplier with the most complete line of soil insecticide products as well as the closed delivery systems best equipped to dispense them, the company is poised to satisfy this growing demand.

Amvac is satisfied with this quarter’s performance and will continue to explore the acquisition of appropriately-priced, branded products. “Our new potato sprout inhibitor SmartBlock® is scheduled to be commercialized during the next 90 days.” said Mr. Eric Wintemute, Chairman and CEO of Amvac. “We are gearing up to take full advantage of the abundant opportunities emerging in domestic corn as well as in other crop markets that favor our extensive offering of granular soil insecticides. Despite the need to overcome some supply constraints in Mocap, and some regulatory constraints with our PCNB fungicide (AgroNews 2011-08-22), we are confident that American Vanguard will finish 2011 with a strong financial performance.” Mr. Wintemute added.