BREAKING NEWS

Osem posts NIS 341m. profit, despite absorbing rising costs

The capital gains tax hike to 25%, as recommended by the Trajtenberg Committee, resulted in Osem Investments Ltd. reporting a one-time NIS 19 million tax expense, which lowered its fourth quarter net profit, falling 9% from NIS 74.1 million to NIS 67.4 million for the corresponding quarter of 2010.
Nevertheless, the food company's full-year net profit attributable to majority shareholders rose 7.7% to NIS 341 million (NIS 3.08 per share) in 2011 from NIS 316.3 million in 2010. Revenue rose 4.2% to NIS 3.96 billion in 2011 from NIS 3.81 billion in 2010.
Osem mentions the social protest more than once in its financial report. It says that, due to the protest it decided to "listen to the public mood" and absorb higher costs for raw materials and inputs (energy, water, and arnona (local property tax)), and freeze executive salaries.
"Since the outbreak of the social protest, Osem has discussed how to respond to the public mood, and initiated measures to help lower prices for basic food items in the Israeli consumer basket," it states. In the first step in July, Osem cancelled planned price hikes to keep pace of increased prices of inputs. In the second step, Osem cut prices by up to 10% for basic food items used by most households and related to the broadest common denominator of all consumers.
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