BG Bunge Global SA

Commodity trading firm Bunge Ltd. reported better-than-expected second-quarter results Thursday, helped by hedging gains despite a volatile environment for its largest segment.

Chief Executive Soren Schroder said the company's grains performance was strong, helping push Bunge's bottom line higher. Earnings before interest and taxes from the grains business line rose to $124 million from $71 million in the year-earlier quarter. In April, Bunge had said poor weather in South America would raise grain prices.

The strength in grains helped boost profit in the agribusiness segment, which makes up about 70% of its sales. Agribusiness Ebit rose to $180 million from $134 million, though revenue dropped 2.8% to $7.52 billion. Mr. Schroder said the agribusiness segment managed through "significant volatility" in price and margins during the quarter.

Still, the company said it expects the mark-to-market gains, which totaled about $40 million in the second quarter, to largely reverse in the its current quarter, said Chief Financial Officer Drew Burke.

For the quarter ended June 30, the company posted a profit of $121 million, or 78 cents a share, up from $86 million, or 50 cents, a year ago. Adjusted, the most recent quarter's earnings were 79 cents on a per-share basis compared with 51 cents a year earlier.

Revenue fell 2.2% to $10.54 billion.

Bunge beat the expectations of analysts polled by Thomson Reuters, who had forecast 38 cents in adjusted per-share earnings on revenue of $10.08 billion.

Mr. Schroder said the company's performance-improvement programs have saved about $60 million of its 2016 goal of $125 million thus far.

Bunge stock has lost 29% of its value over the past 12 months. Shares were inactive premarket.

Write to Brittney Laryea at brittney.laryea@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

July 28, 2016 09:35 ET (13:35 GMT)

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