Durrant Pate/Contributor

Montego Bay-based pharmaceutical company Indies Pharma has seen a five per cent decline in net profits for its 2023 financial year.

Net profit closed the year at J$210.39 million, down from the J$220.79 million posted a year ago. For the fourth quarter ended October 2023, net profit was J$34.42 million (2022: J$32.93 million).

Earnings Per Share (EPS) for the year amounted to J$0.16 (2022: EPS: J$0.17), while EPS for the last quarter totalled J$0.03 (2022: EPS: J$0.02). Notably, Indies’ stock price closed the trading period on December 14, 2023 at a price of J$2.90, with a corresponding P/E ratio of 18.37x.

Pre-tax profit for the year amounted to J$218.82 million, a 1% decrease relative to J$220.79 million reported in 2022. Profit before taxation for the fourth quarter was J$42.84 million (2022: J$32.93 million).

Corporate income tax break ends

Taxation for the year came out at J$8.43 million (2022: nil). The management noted that as of the last quarter of the fiscal year, the five-year zero corporate income tax (CIT) incentive period has come to an end. Going forward the company’s performance will now attract a CIT bracket of 12.5 per cent over the next five years.

Revenues for the year went up 13 per cent to J$1.06 billion, compared to J$937.28 million in 2022. Revenue for the fourth quarter went up 28 per cent, closing at J$268.56 million compared to J$209.65 million for the comparable quarter of 2022.

Cost of sales amounted to J$328.65 million (2022: J$281.47 million), which is an increase of 17 per cent year-over-year. The company booked gross profit of J$172.06 million for the fourth quarter versus J$137.59 million reported for the similar quarter of 2022.

This is attributable mainly to the enhanced customer loyalty towards the company’s product and service quality. The main contributor to gross margin is increase in the sales which has provided us a favorable impact on our contribution and profitability.

Strong growth in other income

Other operating income increase by 413 per cent to close at J$19.71 million (2022: J$3.84 million), while administrative and other expenses rose by 23 per cent from J$376.86 million in 2022 to J$463.05 million. Finance cost amounted to J$66.50 million, a 10 per cent increase from the corresponding period last year (2022: J$60.25 million).

Value on total assets was J$2.21 billion (2022: J$2.05 billion). The movement in total assets was led by a J$79.49 million increase in ‘Right-of-use-asset’, followed by a J$77.18 million increase in ‘Receivables’, as well as a J$61.04 million increase in ‘Intangibles’.

However, ‘Investments’ declined by J$61.69 million to partly offset the movement. Shareholder’s equity was J$1.22 billion (2022: J$1.16 billion), representing a book value per share of J$0.91 (2022: J$0.87).