| Company has been the pioneer in launching and testing eco-friendly fabrics in uniform markets |
Net earnings increased over 76% as a result of previously adopted cost-saving measures as well as continued improvements in the company’s gross margins.
Superior Uniform Group, Inc., manufacturer of uniforms, career apparel and accessories announced its fourth quarter and year-end operating results for 2006.
The Company announced that for the year ended December 31, 2006, sales were $127,695,735, compared to 2005 sales of $133,312,351. Net earnings for the year ended December 31, 2006 was $2,197,267 or $.32 per share (diluted) compared to $1,244,185 or $.17 per share (diluted) reported for the year ended December 31, 2005.
Michael Benstock, Chief Executive Officer, commented: “We are very pleased with the progress of our operating results for the current year. Net earnings increased over 76% as a result of our previously announced cost-saving measures as well as continued improvements in our gross margins. The actual improvement is even more significant when you take into account the fact that we began expensing stock-based compensation effective January 1, 2006. This new accounting standard reduced 2006 net earnings by approximately $439,000 or $.06 per share (diluted). Additionally, we made a decision in the fourth quarter to exit the corporate sales portion of our Sope Creek business and to focus on the resort sales market for this brand. As a result, we took a pre-tax charge in cost of goods sold of approximately $450,000 in the fourth quarter for the write-down of the remaining corporate inventory and approximately $800,000 for the full year in write-downs and closeout sales at losses related to this inventory. The effect of these charges was to reduce net earnings per share (diluted) by approximately $.04 in the fourth quarter of 2006 and by $.08 for the full year 2006.
“From a sales perspective, we spent 2006 rebuilding our sales base and sales pipeline to replace the sales lost as a result of the warehouse related service issues that we experienced in the first half of 2005 which has been thoroughly discussed in prior releases. These service issues, while impacting our results still in 2006, are clearly behind us. We have made tremendous strides in 2006 to improve our customers’ experience at every point of contact with the Company. As a result, our sales force has been able to spend their time more effectively pursuing new sales opportunities. We are experiencing renewed success in our sales initiatives in our target markets and continue to rebuild and grow our sales base. We are seeing significant improvements in our win-loss ratio in our pursuit of new business. We are very optimistic about 2007 and beyond and look forward to reporting continued improvement in our sales and operating results.”