Simply Impressive

Junior market listed bakers, Honey Bun, is enjoying a glorious period of surging revenues and profit that fueled a huge jump in the stock price of 355 percent for 2016, after rising over 500 percent, earlier in the year.
In continuation of a successful year, revenues climbed 36 percent in the third quarter of financial year to June, spawning a 124 percent increase in profit before taxes to $38 million over the June 2015 quarter. Revenues climbed 35 percent to $903 million for the nine months to June, up from $672 million in 2015 while profit jumped 109 percent to $138 million before tax and $132 million after tax of $6 million.
Gross profit for the nine months climbed at a faster pace than revenues, at 40 percent while for the quarter, gross profit rose 34 percent, just below the growth in revenues for the quarter. Expenses excluding cost of sales, rose even slower than revenues, at 20 percent, with administrative expenses rising sharply by 33 percent to $147 million and selling and distribution costs increasing by 10 percent to $104 million, while depreciation rose by 4 percent to $28 million. For the June quarter administrative, selling and distribution expenses rose at a slower pace than for the nine months, at 12 percent.
The company generated gross cash flows of $171 million for the nine months, before expending $75 million on the acquisition of property, equipment and fleet. Honey Bun is in a healthy state with cash balance and investments at $104 million after the company repaid $38 million in long term loans, leaving loans at $16 million. Current assets stood at $212 million and current liabilities ta $71 million. Shareholders equity climbed to $491 million.
The Company that listed on the Jamaica Stock Exchange Junior Market in June 2011, is now subject to taxation on profit for the next 5 years at 50 percent of the normal corporate income tax rate of 25 percent.
Earnings per share for the quarter came in at 8 cents and 28 cents for the nine months. IC Insider projects 34 cents or $160 million for the full year to September, with $147 million or 52 cents per share projected for 2017. The stock traded at $5.60 on the Jamaica Stock Exchange junior market for a PE of 16.5 times 2016 earnings, making it one of the highest valued stock on the market.
The stock was accorded a BUY RATED ranking in November 2015 but has since been placed on a watch list when it shot to over $7 per share.