Colorpak has shaken off last year’s $15m goodwill impairment charge to bring in a $3.6m profit, though sales stayed flat in a competitive market.
The cardboard packaging printer lost $13.2m last year with slumps in sales and EBITDA as restructuring and goodwill dragged it down, but there were no such dramas this time.
Results are still not where chief executive Alex Commins wants them to be, with profit excluding the impairment charge down 4.6 per cent and sales completely stagnant at $159.6m.
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Commins blames the lacklustre result on the disruption caused by rationalising the closed Mt Waverly plant into the Braeside facility, with the benefits delayed until deep in the year.
“The resultant miss to profitability was a little more pronounced than had been expected due in the most part to inefficiency in operations during the disruption of the move,” he says.
“In a much stronger performance in the second half, the Victorian division was able to effect the many changes required to deliver some of the productivity improvements expected, albeit delayed.”
Commins says throughput increases of more than 15 per cent are now being recorded, which will improve the bottom line next year.
“With some good momentum and solid progress to workflows and process now embedded, we are confident to see further productivity improvements flow into the FY16 numbers.”
The company installed a Roland 700 six-colour offset press at the Braeside plant and a new digital printer in Sydney it says will enable faster speed to market for short run, quick turnaround jobs. The new kit replaced old equipment that was decommissioned
Other restructuring included offloading a facility in Sydney it took over in its acquisition of CCH, and spinning off its Foilmasters trade embellishment business into new company Matte Gold.
Commins says shipping out Foilmasters frees up floor space for further expansion into paper cups and more raw material storage.
All up, staff numbers were cut by 44 to 584 and a wage freeze was instituted during the second half of the year.
Colorpak also acquired pre-press provider The Connection and rolled it into its Brandpack division, bringing $1.7m worth of business on board.
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