Qian Hu barely breaks even in 2015

Singapore

AMID a business downturn, ornamental fish exporter Qian Hu Corporation has eked out a net profit of S$19,000 for its financial year ended Dec 31, 2015, 95 per cent lower than the preceding year's S$392,000.

Revenue fell 6.7 per cent to S$78 million from S$83.5 million.

For its fourth quarter, the company suffered a S$198,000 loss, due to falls in operating profit across its fish and accessories segments. There was flagging demand in China for its dra-gon fish. Fish exports to Russia were also hit due to an economic downturn there.

For its accessories business, the depreciation of the Malaysian ringgit affected profitability. Malaysian retailers were also not keen to stock up due to lower customer traffic across all states, the company said.

"We expect these challenging conditions to persist, and will continue to take the necessary measures to adjust and transform," said executive chairman Kenny Yap in a statement.

The company will focus on building a pipeline of higher-margin products while keeping costs down, he said. Qian Hu said it will focus on high growth regions such as the Middle East, Eastern Europe, China and India.

A bright spot in 2015 was the company's plastics segment, which sells plastic bags to pack fish in. The improved performance was due to stabilised raw material and selling prices. Operating profit there rose 71 per cent to S$723,000 for the year, such that the segment contributed almost as much as the ornamental fish segment, where operating profit was S$790,000.

A dividend of 0.2 cent a share was declared. Making adjustment for a 4:1 share consolidation, this is half that from a year ago. On an adjusted basis, net asset value per share at end-2015 was S$0.4431, down from S$0.4497 a year ago.

Qian Hu shares closed trading at S$0.159 on Tuesday, down S$0.001, before results were out.