SINGAPORE (May 23): Neo Group has reported a 7.8% fall in 4Q18 earnings to $2.49 million from $2.70 million in 4Q17.
This brings FY18 earnings to $3.37 million, 3.4% higher than $3.26 million in FY17.
The group has declared a final dividend of 1.0 cents per share.
Revenue for the 4Q18 ended March was 0.8% lower at $47.6 million from $48 million last year.
This was mainly due to a decline in revenue contribution from the group’s Food Retail, as well as Supplies and Trading segments.
Revenue from the Food Retail business decreased by 6.1% y-o-y to $4.08 million, mainly attributable to the closure of non-performing outlets.
Revenue from the Supplies and Trading business decreased by 19.9% y-o-y to $8.57 million, mainly due to an intentional reduction in low margin trading transactions.
The drop in revenue was partially offset by an increase in Food Manufacturing and Other business es revenues.
Revenue from the Food Manufacturing business increased 3.5% to $13.90 million, mainly due to the increase in export sales and its trading business. Meanwhile, Other businesses saw revenue increase by 3.9% to $0.37 million.
Other income decreased by 28.1% to $0.71 million compared to $0.99 million in the previous year, mainly due to the decrease in grants received from government and rental income of $0.13 million and $0.12 million respectively
As at March 31, the group’s cash and cash equivalents stood at $10.9 million.
Neo Kah Kiat, founder, chairman and CEO of Neo Group, says, “Even as we see promising results culminating from the use of automation within our operations thus far, we hope to enhance our competitive edge further by adopting technologically-driven solutions such as the Internet-of-Things (IoT), data analytics and automated systems.”
“This would remove the need for human intervention, reduce the chances for error and enable us to deploy valuable manpower to higher value-added activities. With that said, we believe that the implementation of these innovative solutions will elevate us above our peers in the years going forward,” adds Neo.
Shares in Neo Group closed at 3.5 cents or 5.98% lower at 55 cents on Wednesday.
