ECONOMYNEXT – Sri Lanka’s Ceylon Cold Stores Plc, which runs a retail chain and makes beverage, carbonated soft drinks (CSD), and frozen confectionery, posted a loss of 315 million rupees in the December 2022 quarter due to higher operating costs as inflation skyrocketed.
Revenues rose 39 percent to 31.7 billion rupees, but the cost of sales also jumped 41 percent to 28.5 billion rupees from a 20.2 billion a year earlier.
Gross profits gained 21 percent to 3.2 billion rupees from 2.6 billion rupees.
Other operating costs skyrocketed 550 percent to 491 million rupees from 75 million a year earlier.
The net finance cost more than doubles to 1.15 billion rupees as the island nation saw its central bank tightening the monetary policy following inflation went beyond control due to excess money printing. The market interest, as a result, jumped to more than 30 percent.
The manufacturing cost for the period increased to 261 million, CCS said in its interim report.
Pre-tax losses were 131 million rupees for the December quarter, reversing from a one billion rupee pre-tax profits in 2021.
Total assets have increased by 15 percent to 73 billion rupees. (Colombo/Feb 03/2023)