COVID-19 Impacts Bunge’s First Quarter Performance

St. Louis-based Bunge Limited is reporting a fiscal year 2020 net first quarter loss of $204 million compared to a profit of $37 million in the same quarter last year. Bunge Chief Financial Officer John Neppl says first quarter losses can be attributed to declining commodity values and a spike in processing margins as the COVID-19 pandemic began to spread globally. “As a result, we incurred $100 million in market losses related to forward oil seed crushing contracts. As vegetable oil values declined during the quarter, we recorded a loss of $195 million on forward hedges held against deferred fixed price sales to our downstream edible oil customers.” Read the first quarter results.