Ebos produces cracker result, shares gain

Ebos produces cracker result, shares gain

By Pattrick Smellie

Aug. 26 (BusinessDesk) – Ebos Group broke the gloom of a lacklustre reporting season today with an 18% jump in net profit to $23.4 million in the year to June 30, and a claim the group is “in the best operating shape in (its) corporate history.”

With its focus on servicing the healthcare sector, EBOS reported only a moderate lift in total revenues to $1.37 million, compared with $1.34 million, but a strong lift in net profit after tax from $19.7 million a year earlier.

That improvement reflected “efficiency gains and ongoing investment in automation and technology, and strong profit growth from Australian operations.”

The net figure includes a one-off, unrealised tax change of $1.974 million, reflecting Budget tax changes on depreciation of commercial buildings and the relative lack of physical infrastructure required to run the Ebos business.

The shares gained 1.5% to $6.70 and have climbed 12% this year.

The growing elderly population and demand for technical medical devices continued to serve Ebos well, the company said in its statement to the NZX.

“Strong positive cashflow” continued to reflect the purchase in 2007 of PRNZ Ltd, a pharmaceutical distributor, which effectively doubled Ebos’s size and was bought as a strategic fit with the company’s traditional medical equipment business.

A final dividend of 17.5 cents per share, payable Oct. 8 and up 3 cps from the previous year, means full year distributions will be 6cps ahead of 2008/09, at 31 cents.

“Ebos and its subsidiary companies are in the best operating shape in their corporate history,” said chairman Rick Christie and managing director Mark Waller in a statement to the NZX. “This, coupled with a long term stable executive team, excellent partnerships with suppliers and customers, and an ungeared balance sheet, provide the impetus to allow for significant future growth.”

Future investment will concentrate on healthcare opportunities.

Among many moving parts in the detail of the company’s accounts, a $2.3 million reduction in interest expenses on similar levels of bank debt was notable.

Since balance date, Ebos has announced the sale of scientific arm, including Global Science and Technology in New Zealand and Quantum Scientific and Crown Scientific in Australia for an undisclosed sum.

(BusinessDesk)

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