May 19 (SeeNews) - Romanian construction materials distributor Sipex Company said that its net profit fell 96% year-on-year to 132,887 lei ($28,904 /26,721 euro) in the first three months of 2023.
The company’s turnover during the first quarter of 2023 remained virtually unchanged on a yearly basis, at 63.1 million lei, Sipex said in an unaudited financial report filed with the Bucharest Stock Exchange, BVB, on Thursday.
“Special focus remained on maintaining and increasing profitability in the following quarters of 2023, we also aiming to increase the company’s gross margin […] We anticipate that in the second quarter, our results will increase over the same period of the previous year,” Sipex CEO Gheorghe Constantin Irinel said.
Sales in the company’s business-to-business (B2B) division rose 15.5% on the year in the January-March period, to 25.4 million lei. Conversely, Sipex’s retail division saw a 7.2% annual drop in sales, to 36 million lei, while its store and online division fell by 74% on the year to 215,174 lei.
Sipex’s operating income inched up by an annual 1.7% to 64.6 million lei, while its operating expenses grew by 8% on the year to 64.5 million lei. The cost of goods made up 84.1% of operating expenses, after rising by an annual 7.5% to 54.3 million lei.
Total assets amounted to 135.4 million lei at the end of March, up from 110.5 million lei a year earlier, while total debts rose to 64.3 million lei from 53.3 million lei.
In 2022, Sipex booked a net profit of 20.1 million lei, up 25.5% on the year, it said in an audited financial report filed with the BVB in April.
Sipex was listed on the AeRO market of the Bucharest Stock Exchange in June 2022 and currently has a market capitalisation of 123.97 million lei.
Sipex shares traded flat at 0.31 lei as at 1017 CET on the Bucharest bourse on Friday.
(1 euro=4.9731 lei)