The 30% reduction in after-tax profit reflected in the recently released Sterling Products 2018 Annual Report and which the company says was due overwhelmingly to inexorably climbing fuel-related operating costs do not gainsay the numerous indicators pointing to last year having been yet another year in which Sterling Products returned outstanding production as well as sales performances at the local and international levels, the company’s Chief Executive Officer, Ramsay Ali has told the Stabroek Business.
During an interview with this newspaper earlier this week, Ali said that what had been an otherwise achievement-filled year for the company had been negatively impacted by the failure, up until now, of its discourses with government, to successfully realize a reduction in high fuel taxes which he conceded had put a squeeze on the company’s overall profits for last year.
Days after the Company’s audited financial report for 2018 had pointed to a number of noteworthy production and sales-related improvements in the company’s overall performance but nonetheless recorded a 30.5% reduction in after tax profit, Ali told this newspaper that the disappointing statistic had been wholly a reflection of the failure of protracted fuel-related engagements between government and Sterling Products, a circumstance which he said had redounded to the company’s considerable disappointment. “We have been talking but, frankly, the discourses have made no real progress; and yes, we are disappointed because it sounds a disappointing note in what has been an otherwise solid year for the company,” Ali said.
Figures relating to “significant occurrences” within the company seen by this newspaper indicate that last year Sterling Products experienced a 27% increase in costs of energy for production and distribution with overall fuel costs increasing from $231,352,258 in 2017 to $290,419,533 last year, an increase of $63,920,307 over the period, representing a 30% increase in prices paid at the bulk stations.
And while the Sterling Products CEO acknowledged the slippage in after-tax profit reflected in this year’s annual report he asserted that a deeper assessment of the overall performance of the company provided ample evidence of its performance-related success on both the local and international markets. He asserted that it was a notable tribute to the performance of the company that its revenues from exports had climbed from $139,597,051 in 2017 to $349, 940, 473 last year, a $210,343,422 (150%) increase in exports. This, Ali said, was due in significant measure to the expansion of the company’s regional ice cream market last year, during which period the company shipped twelve 40-ft. containers of ice cream.
Performance-related figures produced by Sterling Products also reflect an overall 6% increase in revenue, up from $3,077,180,731 in 2017 to $3,283,211,508 last year. Local sales, the company says, remained stable, year-on-year while its export potential grew by $210.3 million.
The company, meanwhile, lists among its “significant occurrences” last year its $333,990,191 investment in capital expansion last year, a $158,637,438 increase over the previous year. Contextually, Ali pointed to Sterling’s $217 million investment in its new Ice Cream and Novelties Ice Plant at Providence and its $47 million spent on two new Igloo Marquee Shoppes at Enmore and Stabroek Square.
