Tarlton Beetroot Business Plan — Sensitivity and Scenario Analysis

What moves the outcome: realised price, yield, water availability and establishment cost, with scenarios.

Section 31 of 37

Sensitivity and Scenario Analysis

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The base case works. The downside case runs out of money. The stress case fails outright. All three are presented as modelled.

Table 53 Scenario definitions

Scenario	Assumption changes	Interpretation
Base	As modelled throughout this document	Everything the plan intends, achieved on schedule
Downside	Realised prices 12 per cent lower; yields 10 per cent lower; retail channel migration delayed by 12 months; costs 4 per cent higher	A poor but entirely ordinary run of agricultural and commercial outcomes
Stress	Realised prices 22 per cent lower; yields 20 per cent lower; retail migration delayed 18 months; costs 8 per cent higher; packhouse commissioning delayed one season	A severe but not implausible combination — two bad seasons and a commercial disappointment

Table 54 Scenario outcomes, R million

	Year 1 FY2028	Year 2 FY2029	Year 3 FY2030	Year 4 FY2031	Year 5 FY2032
Base EBITDA	(1.47)	(1.62)	(2.18)	2.81	5.79
Downside EBITDA	(1.60)	(2.07)	(3.30)	(0.68)	1.08
Stress EBITDA	(1.72)	(2.42)	(4.17)	(3.31)	(2.45)
Base net cash	0.67	(1.21)	(2.18)	(3.74)	(1.24)
Downside net cash	0.54	(1.81)	(6.80)	(8.23)	(10.76)
Stress net cash	0.43	(2.28)	1.17	(10.86)	(18.45)

Figure 2. Monthly net cash position by scenario, showing the funding gap in each.

Table 55 Peak funding requirement by scenario

Scenario	Trough (R million)	Trough month	Facility required
Base	(5.56)	46	R7.5m
Downside	(12.29)	48	R14.0m
Stress	(18.71)	50	R20.0m or restructure

A facility of R14 million would not be extended against this balance sheet on ordinary commercial terms, and R20 million certainly would not. The downside case therefore requires either an equity follow-on or a deliberate contraction of the planting programme; the stress case requires a restructuring.

Downside

Survivable only with an equity follow-on of approximately R6 to R7 million or a material reduction in planted area. The DSCR covenant is breached. Existing investors would be diluted at a low valuation.

Stress

Not survivable on any committed facility. The business would require a restructuring, most plausibly the sale of a portion of the land to repay debt. The land collateral is what makes this recoverable rather than terminal, and it is the principal reason the venture is financeable at all.

Sensitivity to individual variables

Figure 3. Tornado analysis: impact of a plus or minus 15 per cent move in each variable on Year 5 EBITDA and project NPV.

Table 56 Sensitivity ranking by NPV impact, plus or minus 15 per cent

Variable	NPV swing (R million)	EBITDA low	EBITDA high
Realised price per kilogram	18.5	(2.09)	2.09
Direct field and pack cost	12.1	(1.36)	1.36
Achieved yield per hectare	11.9	(1.34)	1.34
Exit EBITDA multiple	6.7	0.00	0.00
Overhead base	6.2	(0.64)	0.64

Price dominates every other variable and is the only one over which the Company has no direct control and no hedging instrument. Cost and yield are roughly equal in the second rank and are both partially manageable.

Figure 4. Year 5 EBITDA across combinations of price and yield.

Figure 5. Project NPV across combinations of price and yield.

Figure 6. Year 5 DSCR across combinations of price and yield.

The two-way grids make the shape of the risk visible. A simultaneous 7.5 per cent adverse move in both price and yield — a modest bad season by agricultural standards — takes Year 5 EBITDA from R5.79 million to R3.32 million and pushes the project NPV negative. The plan has no tolerance for two variables moving against it at once, which is precisely what happens in a drought or a general oversupply year.