BUSINESS MONDAY: Goddard Enterprises Ltd. reports mixed results

THE COVID 19 pandemic has continued to affect the performance of leading private sector firm, Goddard Enterprises Limited (GEL).

The story of that impact was told by two GEL officials, who reviewed the Group’s half-year financial results.

“For the first six months of its financial year, the (GEL) Group recorded net income attributable  to its equity holders of $13.0 million and an earnings per share of 5.7 cents,” said Chairman, Charles Herbert, and Anthony Ali, the Managing Director.

They recalled that the impact of COVID-19 started in the third quarter of the last financial year, resulting in the Group incurring a net loss of $26.6 million and a loss per share of 5.6 cents during the last two quarters of the 2020 financial year.

According to Herbert and Ali, the most significant impact was felt on the Group’s Catering and Ground Handling Division and on the smaller Auto Division where sales collapsed and have not yet shown signs of significant recovery.

It was further revealed that these two divisions were impacted by high restructuring costs during that time.

However, they have pointed to some improvements in the second quarter of the current year “as the Group earned net income of $12.2 million”.

However, profitability fell in the second quarter.

They agreed that the diversity of the Group allowed it to balance the effects of the pandemic since the fallout in the Catering and Ground Handling, and the Auto Divisions, was cushioned by creditable performances in the other areas of operations.

“We are anticipating that these two divisions will start to show slow but steady recovery, thereby steadily improving the Group results,” Herbert and Ali reasoned.

They said that the 19.8 per cent decline in the Barbados economy  in the first three months of 2021 and rising unemployment where most of the GEL Manufacturing businesses operate, did not dampen the performance of the division since the entities were deemed as essential.

“With our cocoa manufacturing plant in Ecuador surpassing expectations with good cocoa prices and increased sales, the Division had an exceptional performance during the period,” they added.