Desnoes & Geddes, brewers of the world renown Red Stripe Beer, reported flat profits of $1.2 billion for the twelve months to June this year. Redundancy payments of $311 million, of which $160 million was in the last quarter, and an adjustment of $88 million relating to taxation booked in 2012, bit into net profits.
June quarter results came in at $161 million compared to $472 million in the same quarter last year. The poor last quarter results is not indicative of future earnings. D&G had telegraphed the lackluster numbers when it declared a dividend in June of only 10 cents per share, which brought the total payment to 30 cents for the year.
Sales for the fourth quarter was $2.682 billion, 5 percent lower than the similar period in 2012 and for the full year, $10.369 billion or 6 percent below last year’s figure. A change from exporting brewed product to the USA market in the latter part of the 2012 financial year to licensing a USA based brewery to produce and market the product, resulted in a reduction in export sales from $3.4 billion to $1.93 billion. Domestic sales on the other hand grew by 13 percent in the quarter and 11 percent for the full year.
The company claimed that improved domestic performance was buoyed by new innovations in both the brewed portfolio and a stronger performing spirits portfolio. Cost of sales for the fourth quarter at $1.666 billion and full year of $6.118 billion decreased by 6 percent and 12 percent, respectively, versus the previous year. This would be partly due to the shift of production for the export US market. The shift in export strategy resulted in a big boost to profit in the export segment, which doubled from $405 million to $834 million but the domestic segment profit was flat at $2.49 billion. The domestic segment picked up more overhead cost than before when they were shared with the larger production level. D&G managed to improve the gross profit margin from 37 percent in 2012 to 40 percent in 2013 and gross profit after marketing cost to 32 percent from 26 percent excluding special consumption tax.
Profit before tax increased by 28.6 percent to reach $1.87 billion when compared to last year due to growth in domestic volumes and improved margin, dividend income which jumped by from $60 million to $184 million and royalties that moved from $342 million to $556 million.
Despite the higher pre-tax profit, result after tax was negatively impacted by a higher overall tax rate compared to 2012 when 25 percent was used compared with 30 percent in this year’s results.
Regarding marketing, selling and administrative expenses, the company stated, “Marketing expenses of $190 million for the fourth quarter decreased by $42 million or 18 percent compared to last year mainly as a result of our new export model where expenditure to promote our US exports is provided by the licensee in America. General, selling and administrative expenses for the quarter were $29m (8 percent) above last year. The company’s joint venture with partner Pepsi Cola Jamaica, Celebrations Brands Ltd, began successful operations in most distribution hubs previously operated by Red Stripe and contributed a small profit to D&G’s results.”
The results helped boost cash from $973 million to $1.7 billion after dividend payment of $843 million and $880 million, investment in fixed assets and the joint venture company and growth of $500 million in receivables offset by current liabilities that rose by $500 million as well. D&G ended the period with equity capital of more than $8 billion inclusive of deferred taxation.
Insider call | Keep an eye on this one for future developments.
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