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It is a pleasure to present to you the 1st quarter results of the financial year 15/16. The Group has performed well in the quarter recording revenue growth of 22.9%, with Group revenues of Rs. 8.8Bn.Group earnings stood at Rs. 415Mn, a growth of 68.2% over the corresponding period last year. We have also just launched our first Hemas Group Sustainability Report providing insight into the Group’s sustainability philosophy and initiatives in line with the Global Reporting Initiative G4 guidelines (GRI- G4). The report can be read at http://www.hemas.com/reports.
From a sectoral perspective the key highlights for the business during this first quarter have been:
Our FMCG sector achieved revenues of Rs. 3.8Bn, a growth of 33.2%. Revenue growth was led by our personal wash, personal care, feminine hygiene and home care brands, which experienced a growth in general trade as well as in modern trade channels. Our efforts in building our own distribution network in Bangladesh helped double the topline growth in that market for the period under review. This growth has fed through to the bottom line with sector earnings upby 35.2%.
Our pharmaceutical distribution business posted a topline growth of 13.3% despite the challenging industry conditions which witnessed a market decline by 0.6%. We maintained our market leadership position with a share of 22%. Sector growth was augmented by the healthy performance of our hospitals, which posted a topline growth of 30.3%. Our growing diagnostic network made a notable contribution towards the segment results and both our hospitals at Wattala and Thalawathugoda achieved strong growth.
JL Morison achieved a topline growth of 57.3% and an earnings growth of 603.5% to Rs. 902Mn and Rs. 73Mn respectively. The comparison with last year’s Q1 performance is not particularly meaningful due to the plant closure last year reducing earnings to Rs10Mn for Q1 2014/15. Overall JL Morison has made good progress with record performance in our OTC brands Lacto Calamine, Morison’s Gripe Mixture and Valmelix and the recent signing of the Rx pharmaceutical buy back agreement with the Government of Sri Lanka positioning the company well.
Our Leisure sector experienced slow growth this quarter posting a topline of Rs. 529Mn, a marginal increase of 2.7%. The performance of the sector continued to be negatively impacted by the depreciation of the Euro contributing to the drop in average room rates (ADR). During the quarter Club Hotel Dolphin and Hotel Sigiriya were inducted to the TripAdvisor Hall of Fame for having been recognized for on-line review excellence for 5 successive years. Additionally, all our hotels were honoured with Top Partner Awards by the leading OTA for Sri Lanka; Booking.com. We continue to make good progress on the construction of the new Anantara properties at Peace Haven, Tangalle and Kalutara and these are now scheduled to open in November 2015 and early 2016 respectively.
Courtesy: The Island 14 August 2014
