Saturday, March 30, 2024

Meat gear still drives income

Avatar photo
Providing automated equipment, including robotics, for the meat industry remains the main revenue driver for Scott Technology in its latest year. Dunedin-based Scott Tech said it has also begun significant research and development projects aimed at transferring its technology and capability from lamb boning to other species such as beef, pork and poultry.
Reading Time: 2 minutes

Most of its meat processing technology is sold to Australian customers. 

Sales for the year ended August 31 were $45 million, a 14% lift on the $39.58m a year earlier.

Total group sales for the year were $181.78m, a big lift on the $132.6m previously. All but about $12m of sales were in exports.

Operating earnings (Ebitda) rose 21% to $19.8m but earnings otherwise were close to the previous year’s levels with pretax profits up just 1% to $15m and the after-tax profit rose to $10.77m from $10.26m.

Meat processing sales became the biggest revenue area in the 2017 year. The next biggest revenue areas are in appliance equipment sales, up to $41m from $26m, materials and logistics, $26.7m, and mining, $33.3m.

As well as substantial gains across a range of sectors, significant revenue and earnings improvement was made in North America and Europe, chairman Stuart McLauchlan and chief executive Chris Hopkins said.

Operating cashflow was only $600,000, down from $13.4m a year earlier.

Just over 50% owned by  Brazilian group JBS, Scott Tech completed two acquisitions during the year, one in Europe and one in the US. 

Cashflow is also affected by the high spend on R&D – $11m in the latest year, representing 6% of total revenue.

Some of that spend involves investment in digital platforms and machines based on artificial intelligence.

The group now employs 700 people around the world.

Scott Tech said forward project work is at record levels. 

With the full year of owning the new acquisitions, both involved in logistics and warehousing automation, productivity and synergy gains are expected.

It ended the year in a strong financial position with shareholders’ equity at $102.9m making up 60% of total assets. Borrowings were just $7m.

Shareholders will receive a final dividend of 6c a share, making 10c for the year, from the earnings a share of 14.3c.

Total
0
Shares
People are also reading