Managing director and CEO Brian Robert Evans said it was too early to provide a forecast for the first half of 2008, but said given the pricing pressure on its core printing, distribution and fulfilment markets, they do not expect the full-year earnings performance to be significantly different to the last financial year.
"While we have good reason to be pleased with the performance of PMP's diversified business mix over 2006/07, we remain conscious of the challenges ahead, particularly in the print and distribution markets," he said.
The print and distribution company said the effects of oversupply in the commercial printing market were still to be worked through fully, requiring its continued rigorous attention to cost management and efficiency measures.
PMP recorded a 3.5 per cent increase in sales revenue to $1.288 billion for the full year.
Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, amortisation and significant items (EBITDA) rose 10.8 per cent to $128.3 million for the full year.
The group said lower capital expenditure and proceeds from the sale of investments in associates, it was able to accelerate a reduction in debt levels and establish a new $330 million unsecured senior debt facility.
Evans said the solid 2007 result marked the restoration of PMP's balance sheet strength and underscored the importance of work done to engineer a lean operating base for PMP's diversified business.
"Trading conditions tested our core businesses last year but it's pleasing to know that we had the flexibility to respond and deliver an improved result across the group," he added.
The company noted intense pricing pressures affecting the PMP Print and PMP Distribution & Fulfilment businesses were offset by volume growth from long term contracts and a sustained focus on improving business efficiency.
The group noted its print operations recorded 5 per cent growth in tonnage throughput, a key measure of volume, while better-than-expected efficiency gains from new print equipment installed in fiscal 2006 led to reductions in print costs.
In a press statement, PMP said these measures contributed to an uplift of 13.4 per cent in EBIT before significant items from the Print division.
By fiscal year end PMP reiterated they had successfully completed the national roll-out of its pioneering GPS-based tracking system for catalogue letterbox delivery.
The company said that at at this early stage of operations, the GPS model was already driving steady increases in performance in letterbox delivery, as measured by delivery-in-full-and-on-time.
The group noted PMP Digital Premedia built on a $6.3 million EBIT turnaround in fiscal 2006 to almost double reported EBIT in 2006/07.
In New Zealand, PMP advised they have successfully captured cost synergies and efficiencies from a number of print acquisitions made in the previous year. These savings flowed through to a strong result in New Zealand operations.
Further earnings guidance will be provided at the annual general meeting in November 2007, the group noted.
