SOS to triple book production
Published:Sunday | November 3, 2024 | 12:08 AM
New manufacturing equipment being installed by Stationery and Office Supplies Limited, SOS, will enable the company to triple its production of books and grow revenue by 50 per cent.
This is the word from the company’s managing director, Allan McDaniel, who says SOS aims to reduce the need to import books from East Asian countries for the Jamaican and Caribbean markets.
“The new machinery we have brought in is going to focus specifically on the back-to-school market and a small portion of the continued expansion in the production of choir books and other books,” McDaniel said. “We have a staff complement in SEEK of about 35 persons operating for roughly the $100 million worth of sales we did in 2023. With the new machinery we could potentially triple our output…we’re expecting to increase revenues by about 50 per cent.”
SEEK is a manufacturer of exercise books that was acquired by SOS in 2018.
Speaking during the company’s annual general meeting held on Wednesday, McDaniel said the new equipment will make the manufacturing process less labour-intensive.
“The existing machines are very labour-intensive, for example, we have ruling machines, glueing machines, stapling machines, all the various individual machines that need to be combined to make one product. The new machinery that’s coming, we will put paper at one end and a product at the other end, which will require less labour involvement for every stage of production. If we could do a thousand books in a day previously, we should be able to do a thousand books within an hour based on the technology of the machinery coming,” McDaniel said.
SOS Chairman Stephen Todd stated that in 2023, the company had its best year in terms of performance, with revenue growth of 11 per cent and increase in profit of 17 per cent over 2022.
He said the main growth drivers for the year were the SEEK bookmaking operation, the Evolve line of office furniture, and the partnerships created, including those in Trinidad and Tobago and St Lucia.
The returns on the SEEK operation almost tripled to $97 million, while the Evolve line surpassed $100 million in sales, compared to $28 million for the first five months in 2022, Todd said.
However, the unaudited results show that performance for the first six months of 2024 has fallen off from the corresponding period in 2023. Revenue is down by eight per cent to $957 million from $1.044 billion, while pre-tax profit fell by 32 per cent, from $229 million to $157 million.
The company grew its assets by 15 per cent, from $1.63 billion to $1.86 billion, mainly due to the purchase of two properties.
The chairman reported at the annual general meeting that SOS would be further increasing its warehouse capacity in early 2025.
“2023 was also a year of expansion and growth, both locally and internationally. We have constructed a new 5,000-square-foot warehouse at our Beechwood Avenue property in Kingston. We have rented an additional 3,000-square-foot warehouse in Montego Bay, taking our full warehouse capacity to almost over 50,000 square feet,” Todd said.
“All being well, in the first quarter of 2025 we will start work on a new warehouse project. All of this to increase our storage and inventory capacity, to be able to meet the needs of our customers and their expectations,” he said