Agroindustrias San Jacinto S.A.A.

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What it is

Agroindustrias San Jacinto grows and mills sugarcane, selling the sugar, alcohol, molasses and bagasse fibre that come out of the process. It farms 6,681 hectares of cane across its 11,389-hectare estate in the Nepeña valley, and its mill can crush 4,500 tonnes of cane a day — producing sugar and 40,000 litres of industrial alcohol daily.

The site’s agricultural history goes back to 1872, when it was established as one of the most productive haciendas in the Nepeña valley. The enterprise was originally a cooperative; it converted to a joint-stock company in June 1992, and has been listed on the Lima exchange since 1996.

The company runs for 330 days a year and is the primary employer in the Nepeña district, with 90% of its workforce drawn from the local community. It was also awarded a concession for power generation from renewable sources — burning bagasse, the fibrous residue left after the cane is crushed — in mid-2017.

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Who owns it

Corporación Azucarera del Perú S.A. (Coazúcar) holds 82.76% of the issued capital, and Coazúcar is itself an indirect subsidiary of Clarcrest Investments S.A., the ultimate controlling entity. San Jacinto is part of Grupo Gloria, Peru’s largest private conglomerate, whose interests span dairy, cement, packaging and other agribusiness lines across Latin America.

The public free float — shares tradable by anyone on the Lima exchange — is the remaining 17.24%, split among 1,053 shareholders per the 2024 annual report.

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Who runs it

The board’s president is Jorge Columbo Rodríguez Rodríguez, an industrial engineer and long-standing Grupo Gloria executive who has held the chair since November 2009. The general manager — the day-to-day chief executive — is Pedro Guillermo Villanueva Arenas, in post since January 2021, with an MBA from the University of Piura and more than 26 years running private companies.

PricewaterhouseCoopers Peru audited the 2024 accounts and issued a clean, unqualified opinion.

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The money, in plain words

Revenue in 2024 came to S/ 344.3 million (~US$101.3 million), up just 1.3% on the year before, while profit rose a more meaningful 17.5% to S/ 69.0 million (~US$20.3 million). For every sol of sales, the company kept about 20 cents as profit — a net profit margin of 20.0% (our calculation), unusually high for a commodity-crop processor and a sign of tight cost control.

For every sol of shareholders’ money invested in the business, it earns about 17.6 cents a year — a return on equity of 17.6% (our calculation), solid for an agricultural company exposed to weather and sugar-price swings. The stock trades at roughly 7× annual profit (price-to-earnings ratio of ~7×, our calculation), a low multiple that partly reflects the company’s thin trading liquidity and its controlled-company status.

The 2024 dividend yield was 12.5%, with a payout ratio of 77% — meaning the company sent three-quarters of its earnings back to shareholders as cash. Operationally, the extraction unit averaged a 97.6% efficiency rate for the year, though alcohol exports fell 34% to 1.52 million litres as global demand softened.

On the balance sheet, total assets stood at S/ 739.6 million (~US$217.5 million) against equity of S/ 393.0 million (~US$115.6 million). Short-term financial debt of S/ 115.7 million (US$34 mn) against cash of only S/ 4.0 million (US$1 mn) gives a net debt position of roughly S/ 111.7 million (~US$32.9 million, our calculation) — manageable relative to profits, but worth watching if borrowing costs rise.

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What it is doing now

The share price climbed from S/ 8.77 (US$3)at the start of 2024 to an all-time high of S/ 20.70 (US$6)in October 2024, before retreating to around S/ 17 (US$5)–18 by mid-2025 as quarterly earnings began to moderate. In October 2025, the company filed its third-quarter financial update with the SMV, confirming it remains current with its regulatory obligations; the most recent quarterly net income has been narrowing compared with 2024 highs, consistent with a post-harvest seasonal cycle.

Since 2003 the company has been running ISO-certified management systems, and its subsidiary Agrosanjacinto S.A.C. is expanding agroexport crops — diversifying the revenue base beyond domestic sugar.

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What to watch

• Sugar prices and volumes. Almost all revenue comes from sugarcane products; a sustained drop in Peru’s regulated or spot sugar prices flows straight to the bottom line.
• Weather and El Niño risk. The Nepeña valley is chronically exposed to drought and flooding; the 1997–98 El Niño caused severe losses and the pattern can recur.
• Debt refinancing. S/ 115.7 million (US$34 mn) in current financial obligations falls due in the near term; the terms of any rollover will matter to margins.
• Alcohol export recovery. The 34% drop in alcohol exports in 2024 is the sharpest operational setback in the annual report; a recovery would be a meaningful earnings tailwind.
• Grupo Gloria governance. With 82.76% in one hand and no independent directors on the board, minority shareholders rely entirely on regulatory oversight for protection — a standard emerging-market risk worth pricing in.

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This is news, not investment advice.