ACADEMY PRESS PLC'S GAINS OF COST CONTROL.

In the nine months to September, Academy Press PLC reaped good benefits from cost control.
According to the results for the period released recently, all that Academy Press achieved headed downwards. The good news was that major costs dropped faster than income and so, it ended the period with very but gratifying N7.13m profit compared to N32.7m loss by September 2014.
The salvo of drops started with 5.64% decrease in total income to N1069.9m as revenue from main line decreased by 5.32% to N1057.5m and income from other sources also went down by 26.6% to N12.4m from N16.9m.
In addition the situation was looking hopeless as cost incurred to generate this lower income increased by 4.65% to N641.6m from N672.9m and finance cost rose by 20.5% to N109.4m.
Not to worry, good cost control brought down administration expense by 22.8% to N289.7m from N375.3m and reduced distribution overhead by 18.2% to N22.1m  from N27.4m.
Hence at the end of the nine months, Academy Press not only posted a modest N0.67 gain on each N100 income, it also reduced it's working capital deficit to N313.1m compared to N428.9m previously.
THUS:
* Even though the margin by September was too low to guaranty jolly cruise to year end, it is not likely that things can get worse if the grip on costs continues.
* It may pay additional dividends though if ways can be found to check growth of direct and finance costs. After all, current borrowing dropped by 30.9% within the period.

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