Chemist's prescription a bitter pill

Life Pharmacy expects net profit after tax for the March 2006 year will be $2.08 million - down from the $2.5 million previously indicated.

Chief executive Tim Roper said the company's associated Life Pharmacies were expected to record aggregate revenues of $96.5 million and deliver ebitda of $8.7 million.

That would return dividend income to the group of $2.1 million and, based on these projections, the company expected to declare a dividend of 4.43c a share for the 2006 year.

In May when it posted a March 2005 year net loss of $76,000, Life Pharmacy said it expected a full-year net profit after tax of about $2.5 million for the March 2006 year.

At the time, it said the reasons for its March 2005 year loss were that it included only six months of contribution from its profit-making pharmacy chain and contained a $561,000 write-off of goodwill associated with its $38.4 million purchase of 49 per cent of 17 of the 21 Life Pharmacy stores as well as its franchise brand and business as part of the deal.

Roper said: "The founding transactions and subsequent compulsory acquisition of shares were completed in March 2005.

"We are [now] able to realistically assess our performance expectations over a full year's trading."

- NZPA