Riverstone Holdings posts 7.6% fall in Q1 profit

RIVERSTONE Holdings, a manufacturer of specialised cleanroom and healthcare gloves, saw its first quarter net profit slide 7.6 per cent year on year to RM31.08 million (S$10.48 million).

This was despite a 2 per cent rise in revenue to RM209.82 million, while earnings per share eased to 4.19 Malaysian cents, from 4.54 cents previously. Its gross profit margin came down from 25.2 per cent to 22.3 per cent due to adverse foreign exchange conditions, which resulted in a lower average selling price.

In an update, the group said expansion efforts in Perak will help boost total annual production capacity to nine billion gloves by year-end. In addition, the group has plans to add capacity of another 1.4 billion pieces of gloves by the end of 2019.

Riverstone added: "The foreign currency fluctuations - particularly in the US dollar - volatile raw material prices, increase in overall production costs and competition from other glove manufacturers remain challenging for the group."