Czech agricultural and food holding, Agropol Group, a unit of Agrofert Holding, raised consolidated profit to CZK 441.47 million last year from CZK 405.8 million in 2007, Agrofert owner Andrej Babis told CTK on 9 June.

Prague Monitor reports that the company's total consolidated turnover last year increased from CZK 14.09 billion to CZK 15.42 billion.

Agropol Group raised output of above all live poultry, of which it processed more than 122,691 tonnes. This corresponds to slaughter weight of 61.73 million birds.

In contrast, production of feeds decreased to 566,376 tonnes in 2008 from 629,329 tonnes the previous year.

Agropol is a group of 37 companies, of which 30 are active within the consolidated unit. These comprise trading companies, poultry companies and farms. It also comprises the so-called agri-centres, that is former companies securing agricultural supplies, including warehouse capacities.

Agrofert Holding made a pre-tax profit of CZK 6.153 billion on consolidated sales of CZK 101.365 billion last year. The volume of sales grew by 21.6 per cent, that is by CZK 17.98 billion compared with 2007.

Agrofert Holding comprised 153 companies controlled by company Agrofert and 23 companies under its significant influence, according to the firm's financial statement. Further 23 companies were not included in the statement.

Agropol Group became part of the Agrofert Holding group in April this year. Mr Babis said that the acquisition of Agropol is in line with the company's strategy whose aim is to build a strong agricultural-food complex in the Czech Republic and Slovakia that will be able to compete with large foreign companies, according to Prague Monitor.