Silver Fern Farms have made a net profit of $27.2m – up from the previous financial year and an improvement achieved ahead of next year's planned investment by Chinese company Shanghai Maling.

For the financial year ended September 2015, the company achieved earnings of $86.9m, a figure which represents a 28 per cent improvement on the $68.1m achieved in 2014. Net profit before tax for the year was $27.2m, up from $1.8m in 2014.

Silver Fern Farms chief executive Dean Hamilton (left) and chairman Rob Hewett say the company's financial performance is pleasing. Photo: Supplied.

On October 16, Silver Fern Farms shareholders voted to approve an investment in the company planned for 2016 of $261m by Shanghai Maling, which is outside the financial year covered by the results the company is currently reporting on.

Chairman Rob Hewett says Silver Fern Farms' shareholders will be pleased by the audited result, which confirmed a positive 2015 financial result with further inroads made on debt reduction.

'This is a positive result, delivered in an environment where there were a number of constraints,” explains Rob.

'What was particularly pleasing was that all species made a significant contribution to the overall improvement.

'However, whilst a significant improvement on 2014, we still have progress to make to achieve a return that reflects the amount of capital we have invested in the business over the course of a season.”

A key aim for 2015 was to put the company on a sustainable financial footing.

'To achieve that we needed to both reduce debt under our own steam, and to introduce new equity,” he says.

Chief Executive Dean Hamilton says: 'We achieved our goal of a material and sustainable improvement in profitability. Pleasingly, we were profitable across all three species - beef, sheep meat and venison.

'Beef and venison both had good results, and our big focus on turning around the performance of our sheep meat business is starting to achieve results – with a meaningful profit, the first one in four years.

'More importantly, we see significant scope for continued improvement across all three species.”

The Annual report will be available in late November ahead of the company's Annual Meeting, which will be held in Dunedin on December 16.