12 February 2015

PETALING JAYA: Daibochi Plastic and Packaging Industry Bhd’s net profit dropped 14.82% to RM5.91mil in the fourth quarter ended Dec 31 versus RM6.94mil a year earlier due to higher operating costs, especially wages and electricity.

Revenue for the quarter jumped 4.85% to RM84.05mil from RM80.16mil, lifted by the performance of the packaging segment as the company’s property segment has been phased out. For the full year, the company’s revenue surged 11% to RM344.51mil from RM310.30mil a year earlier mainly due to an increase in export sales to multinational companies in the food and beverage sector as well as new customers.

In a filing with Bursa Malaysia yesterday, the company said that export sales contributed 50% to its revenue in financial year 2014 compared with 40% a year ago.

It added that the group’s profitability could have been better if raw material prices since the second half of 2013 and throughout 2014, operating costs as well as wages had not increased.

Daibochi declared an interim dividend of 3.5 sen per share for FY14 from four sen a year earlier. The dividend is payable on March 27.

For the current financial year, Daibochi expects a positive impact to its profitability, on the back of plunging oil prices which would likely soften the cost of raw materials.

Daibochi also said the depreciation of the ringgit versus the US dollar would not have a major impact on the performance of the group due to the presence of natural currency hedge for its trading activities that limits the impact of foreign exchange risk.