Thursday 18 May 2017

Sri Lanka's Ceylon Cold Stores net down 15-pct

ECONOMYNEXT - Sri Lanka's Ceylon Cold Stores Plc, a consumer goods and retail group, said profits fell 15 percent from a year earlier to 823 million rupees in the March 2017 quarter amid a value-added tax hike and higher inflation from currency depreciation.

The firm reported earnings of 8.67 rupees per share for the quarter in interim accounts filed with the Colombo Stock Exchange. In the year to March, Ceylon Cold Stores reported earnings of 37.38 rupees on total profits of 3.5 billion rupees, which grew 24 percent.

"This was achieved despite seeing a rise in input costs as a result of the depreciation of the Sri Lankan Rupee against the US Dollar and the VAT rate increase during the year," Chairman Susantha Ratnayake told shareholders in the annual report.

CCS produces Elephant House-branded soft drinks and ice cream, and operates the Keells supermarkets chain.

In the March quarter, revenues rose 15 percent to 11.0 billion rupees, but cost of sales rose at a faster 21 percent to 9.4 billion rupees, shrinking gross profits 10 percent to 1.6 billion rupees.

Part of the quarterly profit came from a 92 million rupee fair value gain, up from 16.9 million rupees a year earlier.

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