CHARLOTTE, NC - Chiquita shares climbed this morning as the company reported its second quarter financial results.

As of 12:40 PM ET, shares are up $0.54 to $10.20, a 5.59% increase revealing positive relative strength as the company nears the closing of its announced merger with Fyffes.  Check out this five day snapshot of Chiquita's stock:

The company earned profits of $18 million in the second quarter of this year.  This is a 42% decrease from the same quarter last year.

"Our second quarter results reflect sequential improvement versus the weather-impacted first quarter and versus year ago overall. We remain on path toward the long-term goals established with our 'return to the core' strategy despite substantial headwinds in the quarter and year to date," said Chiquita CEO Ed Lonergan in a statement.  “We realized value and volume sales increases in our banana operations, but reduced productivity, principally due to dry weather, on both owned and third-party farms in Central America resulted in higher sourcing costs and less fruit to sell in our weekly pricing markets.”

The company’s revenue actually climbed just under 2% in Q2 to $826 million, but its costs of sales grew at 3% and affected profit margins.  Bananas are still the largest seller for Chiquita, accounting for $537 million in sales during the quarter, ror a 3% increase.

Lonergan added, "We continue to make progress toward our proposed combination with Fyffes. We are confident this merger of equals unites highly complementary businesses and teams, and will enable us to improve service and reliability to customers while improving the efficiency of our operations. Our shareholder meeting to approve the transaction will take place on September 17, 2014, and we expect to close the transaction by the end of the year, subject to satisfaction of previously announced closing conditions."

Chiquita expects to achieve run-rate EBIT margins of 4% for bananas and 7-8% for salads by the end of 2015.

Stay tuned to AndNowUKnow as we continue to follow Chiquita and its merger with Fyffes.

Chiquita