Unilever Caribbean Ltd yes­ter­day re­port­ed af­ter-tax prof­it of $13.3m for the nine-month pe­ri­od end­ing Sep­tem­ber 30, 2023.

Ac­cord­ing to the com­pa­ny’s unau­dit­ed fi­nan­cial re­port for the pe­ri­od, this per­for­mance rep­re­sent­ed an in­crease of $12.8m over the same pe­ri­od last year, when the com­pa­ny re­port­ed af­ter-tax prof­it of $472,000.

The con­sumer goods dis­trib­u­tor’s prof­its for the pe­ri­od Jan­u­ary 1 to Sep­tem­ber 30, 2023, al­ready ex­ceed the $9.7 mil­lion the com­pa­ny record­ed for its 2022 fi­nan­cial year.

While Unilever re­port­ed high­er prof­its, its rev­enue for the nine-month pe­ri­od de­clined by 14.6 per cent, drop­ping to $168.1 mil­lion from $196.8 mil­lion.

“The rev­enue per­for­mance was im­pact­ed by chang­ing mar­ket forces in se­lect­ed chan­nels as well as the de­cline in the macro­eco­nom­ic en­vi­ron­ment, re­sult­ing in de­clines in the so­lu­tion wash sales in both the lo­cal and re­gion­al mar­kets.

“This neg­a­tive im­pact in the home care busi­ness over­shad­owed strong growth in the beau­ty and per­son­al care and food chan­nels,” said Unilever chair Daniela Bu­caro.

The Unilever chair con­tin­ued, “Prof­itabil­i­ty, as mea­sured by gross mar­gin, has im­proved as the com­pa­ny con­tin­ues to recog­nise more favourable ma­te­r­i­al and freight costs with an im­proved sales mix.

“Sav­ings in op­er­at­ing ex­pens­es from im­proved ef­fi­cien­cy and con­sis­tent cost man­age­ment strate­gies have al­so fa­cil­i­tat­ed mar­gin im­prove­ments.

“Ad­di­tion­al­ly, dur­ing this pe­ri­od, the com­pa­ny record­ed $6.2m in freight and lo­gis­tics ben­e­fits, which were re­lat­ed to the pre­vi­ous quar­ters of this year. These ben­e­fits arise out of the con­clu­sion of glob­al freight rate ne­go­ti­a­tions and the at­ten­dant re­duc­tions in freight rates in pre­vi­ous quar­ters.”

Unilever how­ev­er stat­ed that dur­ing the third quar­ter, man­age­ment had ad­just­ed pric­ing down­wards to pass these freight ben­e­fits on to our con­sumers.

Bu­caro ex­plained: “The im­pact of this $6.2 mil­lion re­duc­tion in freight ex­pens­es to the pe­ri­od end­ing June 30, 2023, was an in­crease in gross prof­it from $45.8 mil­lion to $52 mil­lion and an in­crease in prof­it be­fore tax from $8.7 mil­lion to $14.9 mil­lion.”

The re­port said: “The com­pa­ny’s stead­fast fo­cus on ac­cel­er­at­ing prof­itable growth is sup­port­ed by the im­prove­ment in the cat­e­go­ry mix, where in­creas­es in beau­ty and per­son­al care sales have con­tributed 59 per cent of to­tal year to date rev­enue, up from 39 per cent in the pri­or com­par­a­tive pe­ri­od.

“This sig­nif­i­cant shift in prod­uct mix has boost­ed prof­itabil­i­ty and is aligned to our strate­gic plan cen­tered on port­fo­lio op­ti­mi­sa­tion and sus­tain­able prof­itable growth for a fu­ture-fit or­gan­i­sa­tion.”

Unilever said that notwith­stand­ing the chal­leng­ing en­vi­ron­ment, the com­pa­ny “main­tains a strong fi­nan­cial po­si­tion, with a healthy cash hold­ings and re­tained earn­ings, and re­port­ed earn­ings per share of $0.51 for the pe­ri­od end­ing Sep­tem­ber 30, 2023.”

Bu­caro took over as the chair of Unilever Caribbean in Ju­ly, fol­low­ing the de­par­ture of Igna­cio Segares, who re­signed as a di­rec­tor and chair­man of the com­pa­ny.