Camellia owns tea estates, avocado and macadamia orchards, and arable and forestry land across seven countries in Asia, Africa and Brazil. For years its farms lost money in the first half and barely broke even over a full year. It has used cash from selling a bank-and-insurance stake, UK property and art to pay dividends and fund new planting. Cash and liquid assets were £133m at 30 June 2026, but the farms themselves are still loss-making over the first half, and the full-year outlook is uncertain.
Tea, nuts and fruit on 50,000 hectares
Camellia is the holding company for a group of farming businesses. They own and manage about 50,000 hectares of mature land in Bangladesh, Brazil, India, Kenya, Malawi, South Africa and Tanzania. The main crops are tea, avocados, macadamia nuts, rubber, wine grapes, blueberries, arable crops, forestry and livestock.
Revenue depends on crop volumes and world prices. Weather drives volumes, and the oversupplied tea and macadamia markets drive prices. In the first half of 2026 India (£31m) and Malawi (£24m) were the biggest revenue contributors, followed by Kenyan tea (£18m). The group also owns small non-farming businesses: AJT Engineering, JING Tea and EP Cape.
Costs arrive evenly through the year, but most revenue comes in the second half. First-half results therefore show a loss by design. 3 Sep 2026 5 Sep 2025
Two hard years of low prices
In 2023 tea prices fell, wages rose in every region and macadamia prices dropped. Agriculture lost £5.6m at the trading level, against a £15.5m profit in 2022. The board paid no dividend for 2023.
Management also tried to exit non-core assets. It wound down Bardsley, a UK farming and packing business, and planned to sell its 37% stake in BF&M, a Bermuda insurer. The BF&M sale slipped from Q1 2024 to Q2 and then to late 2024 as approvals dragged. In June 2024 the loss guidance for the year worsened to £10-12m, before improving to £4-5m by January 2025.
The shares moved between roughly 4,300p and 4,800p throughout 2024. 29 Apr 2024 4 Jan 2024 28 Mar 2024 6 Jun 2024 17 Oct 2024 30 Jan 2025
Cash arrives, a plan follows
The BF&M sale closed in December 2024 for US$100m, and a buyback of up to £9m began. Camellia also sold two Bangladesh holdings for about £8m. Net cash and investments rose from £32m to £125m over 2024, and the board proposed a 260p dividend, the first since 2022.
On 19 May 2025 it announced the Value Enhancement Plan (VEP), with three aims: improve operating results, reduce risk and invest in growth. A tender offer returned £11.6m at £54 a share. The shares rose from 4,680p at the end of April to 5,725p in June. Regulatory filings in May and June 2025 showed The Camellia Foundation's trustee holding 56.45% of the company, and Nokia Bell Pensioenfonds 14.8%. 6 Dec 2024 11 Nov 2024 30 Apr 2025 19 May 2025 6 Jun 2025 13 May 2025 9 Jun 2025 13 Jun 2025
Selling the non-core, planting the core
Under the VEP Camellia sold three Indian tea gardens (Chulsa, Leesh River and Chalouni), the Linton Park estate in the UK and parts of its art collections. A June 2026 sale of South Asian art raised £14m net. In the first half of 2026 disposals brought in £31m, and the company says the programme for non-operating assets is substantially complete.
The proceeds are going into four growth projects: Tanzanian avocados, Brazilian arable land converted from forestry, Brazilian citrus and Kenyan blueberries. Management cut costs at the same time. FY25 trading profit was £1.0m, against a £5.5m loss in 2024. 12 Jun 2026 5 May 2026 3 Sep 2026 2 Apr 2026 22 May 2026
Weather, prices and wages decide the result
The record shows that farm profit moves with crop prices and weather, and the company cannot control either. Low tea and macadamia prices drove the 2023-24 losses. Better yields and prices helped in 2025. Malawi's government raised the minimum wage 40% in June 2025, which added cost.
The first-half improvement in 2026 came partly from farm cost cuts. The headline EBITDA profit of £19.3m came mostly from £18.9m of disposal profits. The trading loss was still £5.0m. 29 Apr 2024 5 Sep 2025 3 Sep 2026
New board, asset sales, investment
Byron Coombs is chief executive and Simon Turner is chairman. Oliver Capon became finance chief in June 2024. Two independent directors joined in July 2024 and Orli Arav in July 2026, while Rachel English and Frédéric Vuilleumier left. New managing directors took over in India and Bangladesh. Four directors bought shares in December 2024.
The record is mixed. Disposal timetables slipped in 2024, but the 2025 guidance for better trading proved right. The company paid a 260p dividend for 2024 and 2025 out of reserves, not out of profits. Chalouni and Linton Park completed, but the sale of the Indian gardens has been slow, at roughly £1.5-2m each. 6 Dec 2024 1 Jul 2024 23 Jan 2026 2 Jul 2026 5 Sep 2025 5 May 2026 9 Dec 2024 3 Sep 2026
“Our primary objectives in 2026 are improving business efficiency to deliver better trading profits and investing for growth.” 5 May 2026
Smaller loss, new headwinds
H1 2026 revenue was £104.6m, slightly below last year because the sold tea gardens no longer contribute. Trading loss narrowed to £5.0m from £9.6m, helped by better tea prices in India, Bangladesh and Kenya. Malawi trading profit fell to £2.9m from £5.0m. Kakuzi, the Kenyan avocado and macadamia business, swung to a small loss.
On 26 August 2026 Kakuzi warned that full-year profit could be at least 25% lower than 2025, citing dry conditions and softer markets. Camellia also cites events in the Gulf and El Niño. Cash and liquid assets were £133.2m on 30 June, before a £6.6m dividend paid in July. The latest close, on 12 October 2026, was 5,725p. 3 Sep 2026 26 Aug 2026
What to watch next
Camellia will update its full-year forecast in late October. Its own estimates point to lower Malawi tea output (17-20m kg, against 23.2m in 2025) and lower Indian tea prices in the second half (Rs245-265/kg, against Rs321/kg in H1).
On growth, the company is committing £15m over five years to the four projects. It targets about £35m of extra annual revenue by 2035. At the FY25 results in May 2026 the date was 2034, so it has moved back a year. The Tanzanian farm is due to reach 650 hectares by end-2027. Brazilian citrus planting starts in Q4 2026, with 118 of 400 hectares planned this year.
The open question is whether these new crops, which need years to mature, can earn enough to replace disposal gains as the source of profit. 3 Sep 2026 5 May 2026 19 May 2025
“A further update on the forecast for the year will be provided in late October once the impacts are clearer.” 3 Sep 2026
Written by AI from Camellia's own announcements since Oct 2023 · every paragraph links to its sources