Nov 2007 Financial News

BER Releases Nine Months Results

Nov 15, 2007

Berger Paints Trinidad Limited (BER)
Results for the Nine Months Ended September 30, 2007.

For the Nine Months (NM) Ended September 30, 2007, Berger Paints Trinidad Limited (BER) reported a Net Loss of $1.03 million. This translated into a Loss Per Share (LPS) of 20 cents compared to a LPS of 55 cents in the corresponding period of FY06.

Revenue for the period under review amounted to $31.51 million, up 9.02 per cent or $2.61 million on the same period in the last financial year. Expenses increased by 6.48 per cent or $2.04 million from $31.52 million (NM06) to $33.56 million (NM07). The Company also had Other Income of $1.57 million for NM06 while there was no Other Income in the comparable period for FY06. Thus, Loss from Operations ended at $0.48 million compared to a Loss of $2.61 million for NM06, a decrease in Losses of 81.68 per cent or $2.14 million.

BER saw Finance Expenses of $0.44 million, up a considerable 218.84 per cent or $0.30 million on the same period in 2006. As a result, Loss Before Taxation for NM07 ended at $0.92 million down on NM06’s loss by 66.61 per cent or $1.83 million.

Taxation for the Nine Month period amounted to $0.11 million compared to $0.10 million in the same period in the last financial year. Thus, as stated above the Company ended the period under review with a Net Loss of $1.03 million.

The Chairman has stated that Sales is expected to remain on the growth path over the next three months and is confident that a profit will be realized to year end.

The shares of BER last closed at a price of $3.40 on the local exchange. We are maintaining our forecasted EPS of $0.07 for fiscal 2007. At this forecast and the current price, this share continues to trade at an extremely high multiple of 48.57 times. As such, we maintain our recommendation of SELL.


Gia Singh
WISE Equity Research Team