Canada's High Liner Foods posted a 33 percent first-quarter increase in adjusted earnings before taxes, interest, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) on Tuesday.

EBITDA for the quarter ended March 30 came in at $32.2 million (€28.7 million), up from $24.2 million (€21.6 million) a year earlier.

This came despite a 13 percent decline in sales to $277.4 million ($247.5) from $319.1 million ($284.7 million).

High Liner executives said they expect net debt to rolling 12-month adjusted EBITDA will continue to improve throughout 2019 due in part to the reduction of the dividend rate on the company's common shares, improved cash flow management and the speeding up of a cost-saving initiative.

But as High Liner pushes on with its business turnaround plan, the company expects to face continued declines in sales volumes, it said.

Sales volumes in the opening quarter of 2019 fell to 78.5 million pounds from 88.1 million pounds for the comparable period last year.

The current US-China trade war is not expected to adversely affect High Liner, the company said.

Last week US President Trump, as earlier promised, hiked tariffs on $200 billion (€177.9 billion) worth of Chinese imports, claiming China had reneged on earlier commitments made during months of trade negotiations.

Products on the list, most of which had a 10 percent tariff to enter the United States, will now face tariffs of 25 percent.

“As currently drafted, these tariffs apply only to limited species sold by High Liner Foods and as a result of our mitigation activities are not expected to have a significant financial impact,” the company said.

On Monday, ignoring warnings not to retaliate, China’s finance ministry announced plans to set import tariffs ranging from 5 percent to 25 percent on 5,140 US products on a target list worth about $60 billion.

Finance

High Liner Q1 earnings up sharply, but falling sales volumes a concern