Business News

Multi-Color Corporation Announces Results for Second Quarter of Fiscal 2009

Monday 03. November 2008 - Multi-Color Corporation (NASDAQ:LABL) today announced financial results for the second quarter ended September 30, 2008.

Second quarter highlights included:

— Net revenues increased 55% to $80.6 million from $52.1 million. The increase in revenues was due to the Collotype acquisition completed in February 2008, which generated $31.8 million in revenues for the quarter, partially offset by a $3.3 million or 6% reduction in North American organic revenues.

— Gross profit increased 55% to $14.7 million from $9.5 million primarily due to the Collotype acquisition.

— Selling, general and administrative (S,G&A) expenses increased due to comparable expenses from the Collotype acquisition. However, as a percent of sales S,G&A expenses were reduced by 90 basis points.

— Operating income increased 71% to $7.7 million from $4.5 million.

— Interest expense increased $1.8 million due to increased debt incurred to finance the Collotype acquisition. During the quarter, the Company repaid $5.6 million or 4% of long term debt.

— Net income from continuing operations increased 40% to $4.1 million from $3.0 million.

— Earnings Per Share (EPS) from continuing operations increased 18% to 33 cents per diluted share from 28 cents.

— The Company was ranked 61st on the Forbes Listing of America’s 200 Best Small Companies, and its International Business Unit, Collotype Labels, was awarded Diageo Australia’s Supplier of the Year while also being recognized with Diageo’s Sustainability Award.

“We continue to be pleased with the performance of our international business and the balance that it is providing to our company. Sales volume with our largest customer began to recover during the second quarter and we continue to experience steady sales volumes with our other top twenty-five customers. However, we began to experience softer sales activity with our North American regional account base during the quarter, particularly in the specialty beverage and home improvement markets. As a result, we have taken several cost reduction measures to mitigate the impact of the current economic and market environments,” said Frank Gerace, President and CEO of Multi-Color Corporation.

For the six month period ended September 30, 2008, Multi-Color’s net revenues increased 53% to $160.1 million from $104.3 million as Collotype generated $62.6 million in revenues. Net income from continuing operations increased 20% to $7.0 million and EPS from continuing operations was 56 cents per diluted share for the six months ended September 30, 2008.

“In summary, I am pleased with our overall performance during the quarter, especially given the state of the global economic environment. We continued to make good progress at our new Batavia, Ohio manufacturing facility and we will continue to take actions that will improve our organic sales growth and reduce operating costs,” Gerace concluded.