The profit after tax of Unilever Pakistan Limited has increased to Rs 1,687 million in the calendar year 2007 as compared to Rs 1,632 million in 2006. The company's earning per share surged to Rs 127 in the period under review against Rs 123 in a year back.
The board of directors of the company in its meeting held on Tuesday recommended a final dividend of Rs 63 per ordinary share of Rs 50.00. Together with the interim dividend of Rs 60.00 already paid the total distribution for the year 2007 amounts to Rs 123 per shares as compared to Rs 122 paid in 2006.
In a notice sent to Karachi Stock Exchange, it was stated that the company's sales grew by 11 percent as the company's net sales increased to Rs 23,332 million in 2007 against a net sale of Rs 20,988 million in 2006. On the other hand, the cost of sales increased to Rs 14,249 million in this period against Rs 13,245 million in the same period a year back.
Meanwhile, the Chief Financial Officer of Unilever Peter Harvey while briefing the media regarding company's financial results said that the company's sales grew by 11 percent in 2007. Home and personal care products continued to deliver significant increase in sales in the company's key categories like laundry, hair care and skincare.
Products and marketplace innovations and strengthening the brand image have been the key drivers behind this growth. Sales of beverage declined due to a price reduction and the rising volume of smuggled teas, he said and added that ice cream sales were impacted by unusual weather, erratic power supplies and production problems.
Underlying operating profit increased by 13 percent. In December, the company took a restructuring charge to further streamline manufacturing operations and administration.
This restricted the growth in after tax profit to 3.4 percent. The home & personal care business delivered impressive turnover growth of 25 percent mainly attributable to higher volumes and prices in fabric cleaning, hair and skin categories.
New launches, innovations and market activation were impressively successful in generating volume and value. "We have market leadership in laundry detergent powders, hair and personal wash categories," he said. However, higher material costs specially that of palm oil and higher advertising costs restricted profit growth to 15 percent.
The beverage business sales declined by 5 percent. "In April we reduced consumer prices by 5 percent in line with the fall in tea leaf costs and we are loosing some volume to the many small local brands in rural areas that are using cheap smuggled teas", he said.
Following the normalisation of very high tea prices arising from severe drought conditions in 2006 in Kenya, operating profits for the segment grew by 37 percent, but still well below levels recorded before 2006. In ice cream, Walls grew by 8 percent. Volumes were lower than planned mainly due to unseasonable and extreme weather and production problems. The Lahore factory's capacity was increased by 50 percent but delays in commissioning resulted in serious supply disruption in the second quarter.
Comments
Comments are closed.