PURITY reports 34% decline in first quarter net profits

Date: May 16, 2019

Consolidated Bakeries (Jamaica) Limited (PURITY) recorded a slight increase in revenues to $273.63 million from $271.04 million reported for the corresponding period in 2018.

Cost of sales for the period rose by 2% to close at $161.34 million (2018: $158.10 million), leading to a gross profit of $112.29 million (2018: $112.95 million).

The Company reported total expenses of $94.83 million, a 9% rise when compared to the $87.16 million reported in 2018. Of this, Administrative expenses amounted to $49.57 million, up 3% relative to $48.18 million reported in 2018. Selling expenses went up by 20% to close at $37.79 million (2018: $31.54 million), whereas depreciation closed at $7.48 million (2018: $7.44 million).

This resulted in an operating profit of $17.46 million for the three months period compared to an operating profit of $25.78 million documented for the comparable period in 2018.

Interest and other income closed at $831,254 versus $1.05 million reported in the previous corresponding period. While, finance cost fell by 14% to close at $2.77 million compared to $3.21 million booked twelve months earlier.

Consequently, PURITY recorded pretax profit of $15.52 million compared to pretax profit of $23.62 million in the same period last year.

The Company incurred taxes of $1.94 million (2018: $2.95 million) for the period under review, resulting in net profit of $13.58 million versus profit of $20.67 million  booked twelve months earlier.

As a result, earnings per share (EPS) for three months amounted to $0.06 compared to an earnings per share (EPS) of $0.09 reported in 2018. The trailing twelve-month EPS is $0.03. The number of shares used in our calculations is 222,709,171 units. PURITY stock last traded on May 16, 2019 at $1.80.

Balance Sheet Highlights:

PURITY, as at March 31, 2019, recorded total assets of $1.03 billion, an increase of 6% year over year (2018: $963.30 million). This increase was attributed mainly to ‘Inventories’ and ‘Property, Plant and Equipment’ which closed at $57.14 million (2018: $35.11 million) and $726.24 million (2018: $685.50 million), respectively.

The Company closed the period with Shareholders’ Equity totalling $733.27 million (2018: $735.40 million), which resulted in a  book value per share of $3.29 (2018: $3.30).

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2019-05-16T20:58:00-05:00