SunMoon Food Company has achieved a profit after tax of $6.4 million for FY09 (1st January 2009 till 31st December 2009), translating to basic earnings per share of 0.082 cents or 0.076 cents on a fully diluted basis.

Significantly improved gross margins, lower operational expenses and disposal gains contributed to this strong result, which is an improvement from the $49.8 million loss for FY08 (18 months – 1st July 2007 to 31st December 2008).

EBITDA for FY09 was $10.473 million, compared to a negative EBITDA of $35.462 million for FY08. Similarly, gross profit for FY09 was $5.641 million compared to negative $13.149 million for FY08. The significant improvement in gross profit was attributed to business rationalization, better control over raw material procurement, and inventory optimisation.

Gary Loh, Executive Deputy Chairman of SunMoon and Executive Chairman of First Alverstone Partners which has been the activist lead investor in SunMoon since 2007, says: “SunMoon has streamlined its business and operational model, divested non-core biological and industrial assets, renewed its management team, forged strategic market alliances, implemented cost cutting measures, and has emerged stronger.”