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Monday 17th August 2009 |
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Freightways, the courier firm that sold stock at a discount this year to strengthen its balance sheet, posted a 7% gain in annual profit, including a one-time gain from the sale and lease back of a property in Wellington.
Net profit rose to $34.6 million, or 26 cents a share, from $32.3 million, or 25.1 cents, a year earlier, the company said in a statement. Net income included a $3.9 million gain on the property sale.
Operating revenue climbed 5% to $339.5 million.“The current economic downturn has translated into lower express package volumes from some of Freightways’ existing customers,” chairman Wayne Boyd and managing director Dean Bracewell said in the statement.
Pending a recovery in the domestic economy, “performance of the express package and business mail division is expected to continue to track behind the prior year.”
Shares of Freightways, which gets the bulk of its revenue from its core express package businesses New Zealand Couriers, Poste Haste Couriers, Castle Parcels, NOW Couriers, SUB60, Security Express and Kiwi Express, fell 4.4% to $3.25.
The company didn’t make a specific forecast for 2010 other than to forecast capital spending of about $13 million, “significantly lower” than in 2009, when it spent $21 million.
Freightways cut its final dividend to 8.5 cents a share from 9.25 cents a year earlier and will reintroduce a dividend reinvestment plan “in light of the current, exceptionally uncertain operating environment.”
The company has signed an underwriting agreement for the dividend.Earnings from express packages was below the year earlier period in the latest 12 months, with the fourth quarter “particularly quiet” versus the same period of 2008.
Its DX Mail business, which competes directly with NZ Post, had earnings ‘well down” on a year earlier.The company’s information management unit, which operates in Australia and New Zealand, hasn’t been dented by the economic downturn, posting an earnings gain from the previous year, Freightways said.
Businesswire.co.nz
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