Asset sale boosts Lascelles bottom line
Published:Friday | December 3, 2010 | 12:00 AM
Lascelles DeMercado & Company experienced a marginal climb in revenue over the past year and a 10 per cent rise in its cost of doing business, but still produced robust profits, helped in part by a one-off gain from asset disposal.
The company offloaded about J$454.5 million of property, booked as other income; that, plus a narrow J$56 million of savings on operating expenses, pushed annual profits up by more than half a billion dollars, or close to 22 per cent — from J$2.56 billion, or J$26.65 per share, to J$3.11 billion, or $32.44 per share, at year end September 2010.
Group sales at the spirits conglomerate improved by 2.5 per cent, from J$24.91 billion to J$25.97 billion.
But it cost Lascelles J$15.6 billion to produce its goods and services, up 9.9 per cent from J$14.2 billion in 2009.
Lascelles' businesses include wines and spirits, pharmaceuticals, general merchandising, general insurance, and transportation services.
The group is valued, by assets, at J$37.6 billion, of which spirits and other liquors held mainly under top-producing subsidiary, the J. Wray & Nephew group.
The small uptick in sales in the reporting period was the result of growth in turnover in just two segments.
The 'liquors, rums, wines and sugar' businesses grew sales to J$16.7 billion, up from J$15.3 billion; while 'insurance' produced revenue of J$3 billion, up from J$2.87 billion. General merchandising, which is Lascelles' second-largest money-earning segment, lost more than J$400 million of sales in the period to turn over J$4.6 billion for the year.