Creightons sales and profits rise but margins drop

By

Sandra Halliday

Published
Jun 26, 2018

Toiletries and skincare specialist Creightons is performing fairly strongly with the year to March 31 seeing revenue up 13.8% at £34.8 million, and operating profit up 8.1% £1.635 million.

But the fact that profits are rising at a slower pace than sales, shows that not everything is perfect and the company said Tuesday that its operating profit margin dropped to 4.7% from 4.9% a year earlier. And net profit dropped slightly to £1.232 million due to an increased tax charge.

The gross margin was 40.6% for the year, down from 42.5%, due to one-off increased costs linked to outsourcing of some manufacturing, as well as rising raw material costs and increases in the national living wage.

Back with the good news, the balance sheet remains strong with net cash on hand and the company said that its own brand sales rose 13% last year, including export sales growth of 15%. Even better, sales of retailer own label products increased by 46%. This was balanced by contract sales falling 8% following the decision to not pursue certain low-margin gift sales.

Chairman William McIlroy said: “Creightons Plc has performed well to deliver strong organic sales growth and continued operating profit growth in a challenging operating environment. The group chose to outsource some manufacturing for a period while we invested in personnel and equipment to meet unexpectedly high growth in demand. This has been successful with all previously outsourced manufacturing brought back in house by the end of May 2018. 

“We will continue to invest to enhance production capability to enable the group to sustain profitable operations and to continue to seize new opportunities as they emerge in a consolidating market.”