Sigma Healthcare has beaten its own raised 2021 earnings guidance, reporting a $59 million net profit after tax for the year to January, much better than the $12.3 million loss for 2019-20.
The chemist (Amcal) retailer, distributor and medicines producer reported underlying earnings of $81.1 million, ahead of the $80 million the company was forecasting at the start of this year.
As an essential service, the company said it was able to continue operations through lockdowns without JobKeeper and even saw like-for-like growth of 9% across its key pharmacy brands.
Revenues rose 4.8% to $3.4 billion for the year to January.
Investors cheered the result and confident outlook, lifting the shares 4.7% to 70 cents.
The company said it had lifted sales into hospitals by 15% over the past year, taking advantage of a medical consumables acquisition to sell more PPE across the country during the peak of demand in the lockdowns in 2020.
Sigma took a hit when it lost its distribution agreement with Chemist Warehouse in 2019. But it later picked up a separate agreement to supply fast moving consumer goods with the discount chemist chain (the country’s largest).
Sigma says that business is on track for annual sales of $800 million.
CEO Mark Hooper said the Sigma is now looking more confidently at $100 million in earnings for the 2023 financial year.
“Having targeted $100m Underlying EBITDA by FY23, we now approach that milestone with far greater confidence.
“We also sharpen our focus on business development to accelerate our expansion businesses, including in the medical consumables and devices space.” Mr Hooper said in Tuesday’s statement.
“We also sharpen our focus on business development to accelerate our expansion businesses, including in the medical consumables and devices space,” he added.
The company will pay a fully franked dividend of 1 cent a share as forecast earlier.
