Evogene Ltd. Reports First Quarter 2012 Financial Results

May 15, 2012 |

13 min read

REHOVOT, ISRAEL--(Marketwire - May 15, 2012) -

Highlighted Links

Evogene Ltd. (TASE: EVGN) announced today its financial results for the first quarter, ended March 31, 2012.

Ofer Haviv, Evogene’s president and CEO, stated: “I am pleased to report that during the past quarter, we continued to successfully meet the targets under our various collaborations with multinational seed companies, including Monsanto, Bayer CropScience and Dupont. These collaborations focus on improving key plant traits for the world’s major food crops through the application of Evogene’s computational genomics technologies. With respect to our on-going extensions and enhancements of our genomics technologies, during the past quarter we launched an advanced version of ATHLETE™ 4.0 and continued to invest in further development of our Gene2Product™ and EvoBreed™ platforms.

Also, in order to provide the required infrastructure for our continuing growth, we completed a greater than 50% expansion of our R&D facilities, primarily laboratories and plant growth facilities; along with a greater than 30% increase in our professional staff, from 115 people as of the end of 2010 to 150 today. With respect to data generation, capture and analysis, we continued to make substantial investments. These investments are largely focused on establishment of multiple field experiments, automated data collection directly from the field and further enhancing Evogene’s capabilities as one of the world leading companies in ‘big-data’ management of plants genomics.”

Mr. Haviv continued “In addition, we are continuing to create value through additional growth engines, leveraging Evogene’s unique plant genomics capabilities -- in the past quarter, we announced the creation of Evofuel as a wholly owned subsidiary. In light of the promising business and scientific viability that this activity has shown, all of Evogene’s biofuel program currently focused on Brazil as a main market for the development and commercialization of our castor bean varieties, have now been transferred to this new subsidiary.”

Revenues for the first quarter of 2012 increased approximately 24% to $4.2 million, compared to $3.4 million for the same period in 2011. Evogene’s current revenues consist primarily of research and licensing revenues generated under the company’s various collaboration agreements with seed companies.

Cost of Revenues include expenses related to the support of our on-going activities under our collaborations with seed companies, all of which provide for future milestone and royalties revenues. Cost of Revenues for the first quarter of 2012 was $2.1 million, compared to $1.7 million for the same period in 2011. This increase in Cost of Revenues primarily relates to the extension of our collaboration with Monsanto.

Research & Development expenses for the first quarter of 2012, which do not include expenses incurred in support of on-going collaborations which, as stated above, are accounted for as Cost of Revenues, were $1.5 million. This compared to $1.2 million for the same period in 2011. Research & Development expenses mainly relate to the development of new computational technology platforms, expansion of internal research projects and to support our wholly owned subsidiary, Evofuel.

Loss from ordinary operations for the first quarter of 2012 was $0.1 million, compared to a loss from ordinary operations of $0.4 million for the same period in 2011.

Financial expenses during 2011 due to publicly traded warrants: During the first two quarters of calendar 2011, Evogene had approximately 4.5 million publicly traded warrants outstanding, which were issued as part of its IPO on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange in May 2007. As of May 31, 2011, the date of expiration of these warrants, over 99.9% of which had been exercised. While these warrants were outstanding, any change as of the end of a reporting period in the market price of the Company’s ordinary shares resulted in non-cash financial income/expense due to their revaluation on our statements of comprehensive profit or loss. These non-cash financial income/expense due to publicly traded warrants were no longer applicable after the second quarter of 2011.

Total Comprehensive profit for the first quarter of 2012 was $0.5 million, compared to a total comprehensive profit of $1.1 million for the same period in 2011. Total comprehensive profit for the first quarter of 2012 does not include any non-cash financial affects due to exercise of most of the publicly traded warrants as stated above, while the comprehensive profit for the first quarter of 2011 includes $1.0 million of such non-cash financial revenues.

As of March 31, 2012, Evogene had approximately $57 million in cash, cash equivalents, cash deposits and short-term marketable securities, compared to approximately $59 million, as of December 31, 2011.

About Evogene
Evogene is a world leading developer of improved plant traits, such as yield and drought tolerance, for a wide diversity of key crops through the use of plant genomics. The company focuses on utilizing its proprietary computational genomic technologies to provide a complete solution for plant trait improvement through combining state of the art biotechnology and advanced breeding methods. Evogene is collaborating with world leading seed companies to introduce its improved plant traits into key commercial crops under milestone and royalty bearing agreements. Evogene’s headquarters are in Rehovot, Israel, and its stock is traded on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange (TASE: EVGN). For additional information, please visit Evogene’s website at www.evogene.com

This press release contains “forward-looking statements” relating to future events. These statements may be identified by words such as “may,” “expects,” “intends,” “anticipates,” “plans,” “believes,” “scheduled,” “estimates” or words of similar meaning. Such statements are based on current expectations, estimates, projections and assumptions, describe opinions about future events, involve certain risks and uncertainties which are difficult to predict and are not guarantees of future performance. Therefore, actual future results, performance or achievements of Evogene may differ materially from what is expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements due to a variety of factors, many of which beyond Evogene’s control, including, without limitation, those risk factors contained in Evogene’s reports filed with the Israeli Securities Authority. Evogene disclaims any obligation or commitment to update these forward-looking statements to reflect future events or developments or changes in expectations, estimates, projections and assumptions.

 BALANCE SHEETS Dollar in thousands (except per share data) As of December 31 As of March 31 ------------ ---------------------- 2011 2012 2011 Audited Unaudited Unaudited ------------ ---------- ---------- Current assets Cash and cash equivalents 6,465 11,501 12,919 Marketable securities 34,672 33,998 32,560 Short term deposits 17,652 11,300 5,211 Receivables 800 1,585 1,292 Other account receivables 981 496 653 ------------ ---------- ---------- 60,570 58,880 52,635 ------------ ---------- ---------- Non-current assets Long term deposits 48 47 37 Property and equipment 7,138 7,468 4,333 Intangible assets 134 123 160 ------------ ---------- ---------- 7,320 7,638 4,530 ------------ ---------- ---------- Total Assets 67,890 66,518 57,165 ============ ========== ========== Current liabilities Trade payable 2,059 975 584 Deferred revenues 4,037 4,195 4,176 Liabilities in respect of grants from the Chief Scientist 905 483 487 Liability related to traded warrants - 6,463 Other accounts payable and accruals 2,079 1,806 1,514 ------------ ---------- ---------- 9,080 7,459 13,224 ------------ ---------- ---------- Long-term Liabilities Liability related to chief scientists grants 3,039 2,910 3,399 Deferred revenues 7,673 7,141 7,909 Accrued severance pay, net 9 9 9 ------------ ---------- ---------- 10,721 10,060 11,317 ------------ ---------- ---------- Shareholders’ Equity Share capital 100 100 89 Premium on shares 81,364 81,587 63,433 PUT Option (7,764) (7,764) (4,433) Reserve - transaction with a controlling shareholder 1,156 1,156 1,156 Reserve - share based payment transactions 6,692 6,923 5,366 Accumulated deficit (33,459) (33,003) (32,987) ------------ ---------- ---------- Total liabilities and shareholders’ equity 48,089 48,999 32,624 ------------ ---------- ---------- 67,890 66,518 57,165 ============ ========== ========== STATEMENTS OF COMPREHENSIVE INCOME Dollar in thousands (except per share data) For the Year For three month period ended on ended on ------------ ---------------------- December 31, March 31 March 31 2011 2012 2011 Audited Unaudited Unaudited ------------ ---------- ---------- Revenues 14,901 4,200 3,387 Cost of revenues 8,247 2,079 1,710 ------------ ---------- ---------- Gross profit 6,654 2,121 1,677 ------------ ---------- ---------- Operating expenses: Research and development, net 6,384 1,457 1,226 Business development expenses 1,136 249 272 General and administrative 2,313 536 578 ------------ ---------- ---------- Loss from ordinary operation (3,179) (121) (399) Financial income 1,294 569 595 Financial expenses (1,039) (2) (42) Financial expenses due to revaluation of options 3,729 - 1,038 Financial expenses due to revaluation of obligation to the OCS (156) 10 (75) Other (expenses) income (4) - - ------------ ---------- ---------- Net Profit (loss) 645 456 1,117 ------------ ---------- ---------- Total Comprehensive Profit (loss) 645 456 1,117 ============ ========== ========== Basic profit (loss) per share (in dollar) 0.02 0.12 0.038 ============ ========== ========== Diluted profit (loss) per share (in dollar) 0.02 0.12 0.038 ============ ========== ==========