"All businesses are producing good results, bearing in mind their individual circumstances," says CE Gerrit Pretorius. "In most cases sales have grown strongly, while operating margins benefited from the increased activity."
<B>Salient figures</B>
Reunert results for the year to 30 September 2002.
Previous year`s figures in parentheses:
Revenue: R5.06b (R4.23b)
EBITDA: R559.7m (R425.3m)
Profit before tax: R489.9m (R438.3m)
Attributable earnings: R370.6m (R332.2m)
HEPS: 229.5c (174.8c)
Current assets: R1.66b (R1.4b)
Cash and equivalents: R283.5m (R303.5m)
Current liabilities: R2.08b (R1.48b)
Cash generated from operations: R193.7m (R380.8m)
Headline earnings grew 31% to 229.5c for the year to end-September. Pretorius says the results were based on a mixture of organic and acquisitive growth.
A final dividend of 88c was declared, bringing the total dividend for the year to 118c, up from 91c the previous year.
The group has also announced an agreement with The IQ Business Group to acquire the 50% stake in IQ Works currently held by IQ. Pretorius says this will enhance the Nashua digital product offering.
In the electronics business, Nashua produced good results with all its divisions contributing to increased earnings. NPC also improved earnings largely due to growth from business systems and non-consumer operations.
Nashua Mobile performed strongly, with the contract subscriber base increasing to 265 000 and prepaid customers growing to 45 000. Revenue and operating income benefited from the growing base and the increased airtime usage.
Pretorius says the telecommunications operations had a pleasing year, with the market continuing to expand with the spend on the third cellular licence, the second network operator and the telecommunication infrastructure spend in Africa.
In the electrical engineering and cables operations, CBI`s sales and profits grew strongly, and African Cables increased sales and margins.
ATC incurred trading losses and stock write-downs, but restructuring is expected to result in at least break-even in the new financial year.
"We are proud of our achievements over the past five years," Pretorius says. "During this period, Reunert has distributed more than R1.2 billion to shareholders by way of dividend, which is around 40% of our current market capitalisation.
"In addition, we have achieved compound growth in headline earnings per share in excess of 25% per annum.
"Currently the outlook for the group`s operations remains positive. Consequently management is confident that real growth in headline earnings per share will be achieved in the new year."
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