By: La Papillion
FJ Benjamin released its full year results for FY08 recently. I’m not interested in this company though I’m interested in the business. I followed this company since a number of forum friends had or once had vested interest in this company, so I’m doing it for the intellectual challenge that it might pose.
The press release as usual gave a very clear summary of how FJ ben is doing. The headlines mentioned about the 33% increment in turnover year on year, while the net profit (excluding exceptional items) went down 17%. Dividend of 2 cts per share is also given. I’ve learnt not to rely so much on press release or any media statement but to do more detail and independent work on the financial statements itself.
Here are the key figures for FJben:
----------------------------------------FY08----------------FY07
ROE(%)------------------------------10.6------------------10.8
Net margins(extraord. gains)-------4.3--------------------8.3
Net margins(no extraord.gains)----4.3--------------------6.8
Total debts to equity (%)-----------91.4------------------52.9
Current ratio---------------------------1.7--------------------2.5
Quick ratio-----------------------------0.93------------------1.73
EPS (SGD)--------------------------0.0261---------------0.0507
My take:
1. Big drop in the net margins while gross margins (not shown) remained almost constant. Two items caught my eye as I try to decipher what made the net margins dropped so much – rental of premises and depreciation of property, furniture, fixtures and equipment. Read more...
