Hayleys to fully exit from consumer electronics sector soon

Hayleys PLC says it expected the process of ‘exiting’ from the Consumer Electronics sector to be completed in the fourth quarter of the organisation’s financial year. The decision to move out of this sector was announced earlier, officials said.

“We expect our exit from Consumer Electronics to be substantially complete at the end of the 4th quarter,” Hayleys Chairman N. G. Wickremeratne, said in a company’s press release on its latest results. Hayleys, the diversified multinational blue chip, reported a turnover of Rs 21.8 billion and after-tax profit of Rs 684 million for the nine months ending December 31, 2007, following a third quarter of mixed results.

Group turnover for the period reflected a 13 per cent growth over the corresponding nine months of the previous year, external factors such as higher costs of production and finance, exchange losses and costs associated with the phased exit from the Consumer Durables (electronics) business have combined to push profits down.Consequently, profit before tax and losses of Consumer Durables at the end of the third quarter was down 5 per cent, while profit after tax and losses from Consumer Durables, at Rs 684 million, reflected a decline of 28 per cent over the first nine months of 2006-07.

As a result, profit attributable to equity holders of the company was down 57 percent to Rs 219 million.