Odlins starts year well

Press, 11 August 1980, Page 22

Odlins starts year well

Total sales for Odiins Ltd, in the first quarter of the current year rose 13.2 per cent, and the company is budgeting for a substantial increase in exports this year, says the managing director (Mr D. C. Hill), in the annual report. The company is currently enjoying a high level of trading through its numerous merchandising outlets.

Mr Hill says that as the number of new houses being built is declining “it is obvious that we are obtaining business from other sources, including the handyman market.” Odiins direct involvement in housing construction and land development, through its subsidiary Prestige Homes Corporation, Ltd, represented only 3.4 per cent of total sales for the first quarter of the current year.

Odiins has a strictly controlled building programme with very few unsold completed houses though it does have “an oversupply of land both developed and undeveloped, which will take some time to dispose of unless there is ah - unexpected upturn in the: market.” Provided sales of building : materials and other merchandise is maintained, and i exports improve, the compai ny “expects a satisfactory result for the full year’s trading.” Reviewing the year to March 31, Mr Hill says that efforts to increase the volume of exports continued and results were “most encouraging”, particularly in the timber division. There were substantial increases in sales of logs, (sawn timber and wood chips land the total output of the

Tauranga sawmill is being exported under a long-term contract with Sumitomo Forestry, Ltd, of Japan. Mr Hill says that Odiins is the first New Zealand company to negotiate such an arrangement. - Export prospects for sales of Zip cookware designed and manufactured for the' North American market also appear to. be favourable, and exports of plywood and veneer by the company’s new acquisition, H. T. Plywood, Ltd, are also increasing in volume. During the year under review the value of exports increased by 67 per cent to a total of $5.6 million and represented nearly 5 per cent. of total group sales. According to Mr Hill “this resulted in a useful reduction in the over-all rate of taxation.”

Including exports' from associated companies the total Odlin export involvement 1 was $7.5 million, and “our forecast for the current financial year is substantially in excess of this figure,” Mr Hill says: . • As reported, the company managed a 31 per cent profit , increase to $4 million on a 14 per cent runover. increase to $124 million.