Australia“s Penrice Soda Holdings expects a better result in financial year 2006/07 after hitting a few obstacles during its first year as a listed company.
The Adelaide-based soda ash and soda bica…
Australia“s Penrice Soda Holdings expects a better result in financial year 2006/07 after hitting a few obstacles during its first year as a listed company. The Adelaide-based soda ash and soda bicarbonate company posted a full-year net profit of AUD 9.05 million on 25 August 2006, 11.3% below the prospectus forecast but in line with the company“s latest market guidance. Revenues for 2005/06 were up 4% to AUD 133.7 million. Penrice said it would still pay its forecast fully-franked final dividend of AUD 0.077 per share on 23 October 2006. Earning were hit by an incident which shut down its plant for eight days, as well as higher fuel prices, unfavourable exchange rate movements and delays in commissioning projects. The company said 25 August 2006 it had locked in hedging contracts to fix its exchange rate obligations at USD 0.74, USD 0.01 lower than the average 2006 rate. Chairman John Heard said the company had already completed its planned maintenance shutdown for 2006 and was producing at better-than-budgeted rates. Mr Heard said the company expected a further expansion of soda ash sales in the domestic market with further growth forecast in the container glass industry. Prices were expected to remain high, with a number of supply/demand drivers influencing increased prices. Mr Heard said the company was also focused on cutting costs and increasing efficiency, which would pay off during the year. Mr Heard said the search was underway for a new chief executive to replace David Reid, who resigned in July 2006, and the company hoped to make an appointment within four months. “We“re fortunate that we have a very good senior team at the company, all of which have been there for a very long time, so it“s certainly business as usual”, Mr Heard said.