Wellington Drive shares jump 10% on ebitda profit, revenue lift in 2016

Wednesday 1st February 2017

Wellington Drive Technologies, which makes energy efficient motors for commercial refrigerators, posted its first profit before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (ebitda) after lifting revenue 44 percent in 2016.

Revenue rose to $35.3 million in the year to Dec. 31 from $24.6 million a year earlier, the company said. Its target of a "modest ebitda profit" was achieved and gross annual margin rose to 24.4 percent, from 22.2 percent in 2015. Wellington Drive uses ebitda because it believes the measure avoids distortions.

"We are seeing initial strong demand forecasts from customers for Q1 2017 although we are still working with customers to determine and confirm volumes for the first half of the year," the company said. "Our early forecast for 2017 indicates that the company can achieve further revenue growth and we continue to expect an ebitda profit for 2017 in the low millions."

The shares jumped 10.2 percent to 19.5 cents, and have more than doubled in value within the past year.

It received $10 million of revenue in the fourth quarter compared to $6 million in the final quarter of 2015, while cash on hand as at Dec. 31 was $600,000, net of $1.5 million in debt drawn from its $2 million facility. Full results will be released in February, it said.

Wellington Drive has focused on Latin America to make the company profitable after years of underperformance, convincing cornerstone shareholder SuperLive, the NZX-owned fund manager, to back a series of capital raisings.

BusinessDesk.co.nz

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