Int’l operations rescue company from ‘flat’ domestic market

DDL financial report

Demerara Distillers Limited (DDL) and its subsidiaries have recorded increased profits as a result of impressive performance on the international markets, where their turnover grew by 20%, despite the domestic turnover increasing by less than

one per cent over the first six months of this year.
Komal Samaroo, Chairman of the DDL Board of Directors, noted that “while turnover in the domestic market was relatively flat, increasing marginally by 0.5 per cent in the period, turnover in our international markets grew by an impressive 20%.”
Samaroo this past weekend presented the DDL Interim Report for 2017, in which he reported that the company’s turnover on the domestic market remained ‘flat.’
The consolidated report has incorporated the accounts of subsidiaries Demerara Contractors and Engineers Limited, Demerara Shipping Company, Tropical Orchard Products Company (TOPCO), DDL Trinidad and Tobago, DDL St Kitts and Nevis, DDL United States of America, Demerara Rum Company Inc and Breitensteing Holdings BC. Also incorporated into the group’s accounts are National Rums of Jamaica, Diamond Fire and General Insurance Inc, and DDL Hyderabad.
According to the information supplied in the company’s interim financial report for the first half of 2017, turnover for the first half of the year grew by seven per cent, increasing from $8.5 billion to almost $9.1billion.
Samaroo has since indicated that the DDL Group will continue to place “great emphasis on the development of its brands, particularly in its overseas markets.”
The company did manage to secure an increase in profit before taxes over the period when compared with last year, earning just about $154 million more.
The DDL Group, for the first half of 2017, earned $1.3billion before paying taxes. This compares well with the $1.1billion it had earned during the previous year.
“Profit after taxation for the first half of the year was $936 million, compared to $805 million in the previous year,” according to Samaroo, the company’s Chairman.
The company currently boasts assets valued at the end of June at some $26.7 billion, down from the audited position at the end of 2016, which appraised DDL’s total assets to be $27 billion.
With just over $1 billion as cash in hand and at bank, its inventory at the end of June was recorded at just over $11.1billion, while its property, plant and equipment have been appraised at just over $9.5 billion.
According to the company’s consolidated statement of financial position, it has in excess of $346 million earmarked as recoverable taxes for the first half of the year, while its investments and investment properties total just over $2.7 billion.
The company is not without liability, since, according to its financial statement, it has close to $2 billion in loans which are due after one year, and another billion earmarked as deferred tax.
The company has also secured a bank overdraft in excess of $2 billion, while its trade and other payables stand at just over $1.1 billion.