Radius Elloughton Gardens in Timaru. Photo / Supplied
Rising revenue at New Zealand's smallest listed aged care and retirement village specialist Radius Residential Care pushed up annual profit by 52 per cent and the business said it was in expansion mode.
The company made $2.6 million for the year to March 31, 2022, up on the previous $1.7m, even though last year's $2.8m property revaluation gains fell to $1.08m in the latest period.
But revenue rose from $121.2m to $132m.
Chief executive Andrew Peskett said the result was an excellent performance, given the challenges the year presented due to the pandemic.
"FY22 was also notable for the significant property transactions undertaken. We now have a development pipeline of 294 additional beds. We're delighted that the majority of these are likely to be our new care suite product where residents buy an occupation right agreement."
The company now has assets of $290m and $30m debt.
Its strategy is to buy more aged-care properties it leases as well as those from other parties and to develop its own new facilities.
Last August it paid $31.4m for land and buildings on properties it previously leased in Auckland, Waikato, Taranaki and Canterbury.
In November, it bought an Invercargill property for $14.5m.
It paid $46.7m for land and buildings at a further four leased sites after the March 31 balance date.
"As the owner of a site, rather than lessee, Radius Care can expand and reconfigure it to best suit its needs. All these purchases were immediately earnings accretive due to borrowing costs being lower than the lease payments," Peskett said today.
"As a result of the acquisition of the nine sites, the overall number of beds expected to be added across our portfolio has increased from 104 to 294 and independent living units from 40 to 167.
"That will see a very significant expansion in our product and services offerings over the next few years. These rooms will attract additional accommodation supplements, further boosting our underlying EBITDA [earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation] per bed," Peskett said today.
The business was founded in 2003 and is nationwide. It operates 23 aged-care homes and villages of which it owns 12 and leases 11.
It also owns and operates three retirement villages and an online shop for specialist assisted-living products.
The company employs around 1600 staff.
Radius Care listed on NZX in December 2020.
Shareholders will get a 0.55 cents per share dividend on June 22, taking the total to 1.05cps for the full year.
Shares were on Friday trading around 36c, down 60 per cent annually. The company has 269 shares on issue, giving it a market capitalisation of $96m.
Covid-19 lockdowns, international shipping disruptions and higher input costs acted to drive Metro Performance Glass into the red in the year to March.
The glass supplier and manufacturer reported a $0.5 million loss in the year from a profit of $8.1m a year earlier.
New Zealand revenue declined 1 per cent, year-on-year, supported by robust activity before and after the lockdown period.
Across the Tasman, Metroglass' Australian Glass Group (AGG) delivered revenue growth of 11 per cent as market activity remained strong despite disruptions.
Group earnings before interest, tax and significant items fell 66 per cent to $5.9m.
Significant increases to input costs and the New Zealand lockdown period materially impacted profitability, the company said.
Chief executive Simon Mander said the company had achieved solid sales.
"However, the lockdown in New Zealand, international shipping disruptions and higher input costs have materially reduced profitability," he said.
Net debt increased from $48m to $52.3m, and reflected the increase in safety stock, the higher stock cost, and capital investments.
Revenue in New Zealand declined 1 per cent to $178m as construction activity remained robust.
However, disruptions through the supply chain, elevated input costs and the lockdown significantly impacted EBIT which declined from $18.7m to $7.4m.
The transformation of AGG into a specialist double-glazing business continued through 2022 despite Covid-19 restrictions, adverse weather events, disruptions to international supply chains, and reduced employee availability.
The demand for new residential construction activity has continued to reach record levels in New Zealand, despite a constraint on the capacity of the sector.
"This provides confidence of a solid and steady pipeline of work for at least the balance of the year," Metroglass said.
In Australia strong approvals and a similar capacity constraint were also expected to provide an elongated pipeline of activity.
"The potential impacts of the pandemic are likely to maintain a level of uncertainty in the short to medium term, combined with the risk of ongoing supply chain disruptions, labour shortages, and cost inflation."
Metroglass said its focus would be on gross profit improvement.
Used car dealers NZ Automotive Investments (NZAI) said its inability to trade during Covid-19 lockdowns helped drive its net profit down by 19 per cent to $2.6 million in the March year.
NZAI, the company behind used car dealership 2 Cheap Cars and NZ Motor Finance Ltd, said its revenue and income came to $66.0m, down $0.1m from last year.
The company's underlying net profit after tax was $1.7m, down from $3.8m.
Net operating cashflow fell by $6.8m.
Chief executive David Page said the year had been a difficult one for the business with Covid 19 restrictions having a greater impact than in 2021.
"The reduced ability to trade during the lockdowns and pandemic-related uncertainty impacted buyer behaviour, while the Omicron outbreak in January and February meant more stringent self-isolation with the business not experiencing the same level of bounce back in sales previously experienced after the first lockdown in the prior financial year," he said.
The August lockdown provided an opportunity for the vehicle processing hub to review stock and process vehicles freeing up future capacity.
While the decision to bring this initiative forward was made to improve future processing capacity and to help enable a stock clearance strategy ahead of the move to new premises, it absorbed more time and incurred more cost to resolve than had been anticipated.
"As a consequence of the lower volume of vehicle sales and the new Credit Contracts and Consumer Finance Act lending standards, 2 Cheap Cars' finance and insurance income was impacted in the second half of the year," Page said.
The changes to lending standards made it more difficult for some customers to access consumer finance, and also increased the time for NZAI's third party providers to process applications.
The second half of the year was also impacted by an unexpected strengthening of the New Zealand dollar against the Japanese yen.
NZAI said its balance sheet remained solid, with $3.8m in cash and net debt of $8m as at 31 March 2022.
Since the balance date, NZAI said its Retail Automotive Division had seen an improvement in sales and foot traffic but said there remained some economic uncertainty, with rising interest rates, and inflationary pressures in an economy emerging from the Covid pandemic.
The company said it was well-positioned for growth and development.
NZAI's final dividend of 0.88 cents brought the full-year 2022 gross dividend to 3.1 cps.
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