November 16, 2020

Caribbean Flavours and Fragrances, for the nine months ended September 30, 2020, reported revenues of $451.90 million (2019: $358.44 million). For the quarter, revenue amounted to $141.31  million, an increase of 7%, when compared with the $132.11 million booked last year. CFF noted, “the improvement in this quarter as well as the year to-date sales have been driven by the implementation of our strategy with a direct focus on closing new business, availing new products to our various partners and improving our sales strategies to the various markets that we serve.”

 Cost of sales amounted to $308.02 million (2019: $233.70 million), this resulted in gross profit increasing by 15% to $143.88 million for the nine months, relative to $124.74 million booked last year. Gross profit for the quarter closed at $45.12 million (2019: $40.24 million). According to management, “this was driven by a combination of expense management and efficiency gains partly due to t he pandemic as well as improving our efficiencies while driving our costs of sales down with improved purchasing and logistics costs.”

Administrative expenses increased by 14% to close the period under review at $86.82 million (2019: $76.21 million); whereas, selling and distribution costs totalled $2.19 million (2019: $1.31 million). While for the quarter, administrative expenses increased 9% to $29.58 million (2019: $27.17 million), while selling and distribution costs decreased to $74,000 compared to $618,000 for the nine months ended September 2019. Also, Finance income closed the nine months at $11.51 million relative to $7.97 million in 2019.

 Profit before taxation totalled $66.38 million compared to $55.19 million in the prior year. For the quarter, profit before taxation amounted to $16.90 million (2019: $14.95 million), an increase of 13%. Taxation of $8.30 million was booked for the period under review (2019: $7.54 million), resulting in net profit of $58.08 million versus net profit of $47.66 million in 2019. However, for the quarter, net profit closed at $14.73 million (2019: $12.44 million).

 In addition, the Company stated, “Caribbean Flavours and Fragrances Limited has evolved from an order taking institution to become a more solution driven organisation. We continue to improve our product offerings and solutions through our research and development capabilities and expect that we will gain mor acceptance in local and overseas markets from these initiatives.”

Earnings per share for the period amounted to $0.065 (2019: $0.053). While, for the quarter, EPS totalled $0.016 (2019: $0.014). The twelve months trailing EPS is $0.047. The number of shares used in the calculation was 899,200,330 units. CFF closed the  trading period on November 16, 2020 at a price of $1.76.

According to CFF, “The Company continues with the implementation of Business Plans, which are anchored on the pillars of revenue growth and expense management and continue to deliver on the desired results and this growth path even with this Covid-19 pandemic. We will continue to innovate and take calculated risks as the market dictates.”

Balance Sheet at a glance:

As at September 30, 2020, Total Assets amounted to $613.48 million, $92.26 million more than its balance of $521.22 million a year prior. This increase was driven by ‘Right of use’ which amounted to $81.08 million (2019: nil). ‘Short term investments’ also contributed to the increase with a 10% growth to $234.10 million (2019: $212.54 million).

Shareholders’ Equity totalled $466.67 million (2019: $455.16 million) with a book value of $0.52 (2019: $0.51).

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