Performance Summary for Nine Months Ended December 31, 2018
Sales and other operating revenues increased $8.3 million or 0.7% from $1,202.1 million for the nine months ended December 31, 2017 to $1,210.4 million for the nine months ended December 31, 2018. This increase was primarily due to a 5.0% increase in volume attributable to larger crop sizes in Africa. This increase was partially offset by delayed tobacco shipments in South America, lower volume in North America attributable to Hurricane Florence reducing the U.S. crop size and foreign tariffs on U.S. tobacco, and a decrease in average sales price of 4.7%.
Cost of goods sold increased $14.4 million or 1.4% from $1,030.6 million for the nine months ended December 31, 2017 to $1,045.0 million for the nine months ended December 31, 2018. This increase was primarily due to the increase in volume.
Gross profit as a percent of sales decreased from 14.3% for the nine months ended December 31, 2017 to 13.7% for the nine months ended December 31, 2018. This decrease was primarily due to higher conversion costs in North America attributable to Hurricane Florence reducing the U.S. crop size, unfavorable changes in product mix in South America, and the exchange impact on local currency denominated costs, primarily in Europe.
SG&A increased $16.6 million or 16.2% from $102.2 million for the nine months ended December 31, 2017 to $118.8 million for the nine months ended December 31, 2018. SG&A as a percent of sales increased from 8.5% for the nine months ended December 31, 2017 to 9.8% for the nine months ended December 31, 2018. These increases were primarily due to the inclusion of newstart-up business ventures in the current year and increased costs associated with developing and supporting these new business ventures. The Other Products and Services segment had SG&A costs of $23.9 million.
Other income, net increased $3.6 million or 36.4% from $9.9 million for the nine months ended December 31, 2017 to $13.5 million for the nine months ended December 31, 2018. This increase was primarily due to the receipt of final insurance proceeds from the fiscal 2016 fire in Zimbabwe.
Restructuring and asset impairment charges of $3.4 million for the nine months ended December 31, 2018 were primarily related to a restructuring initiative to consolidate the Company’s U.S. green tobacco processing operations in Farmville, North Carolina into the Wilson, North Carolina facility and repurpose the Farmville facility for storage and special projects and the decision to close one of the Company’s foreign processing facilities and process tobacco in the affected area under a third-party processing arrangement going forward.
Earnings Per Share
For the three months ended December 31, 2018, the Company reported a net loss of $5.1 million, or $0.56 per basic share, compared to net income of $88.5 million, or $9.83 per basic share, for the three months ended December 31, 2017. Net loss in the current year includes $9.6 million of SG&A costs related thestart-up of new business ventures and zero in the prior year period.
For the nine months ended December 31, 2018, the Company reported a net loss of $60.5 million, or $6.69 per basic share, compared to net income of $56.9 million, or $6.34 per basic share, for the nine months ended December 31, 2017. Net loss in the current year includes $23.9 of SG&A costs related thestart-up of new business ventures and zero in the prior year period.
Reported earnings for the three and nine months ended December 31, 2017 were favorably impacted by a net tax benefit of $73.3 million primarily attributable to the impact of the 2017 U.S. Tax Reform Act.
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