One-time interest expenses, offset somewhat by cost-cutting, have left B.C.-based greenhouse supply firm Bevo Agro’s 2008 financial ledger deeper in red ink than the previous year.
The Langley company on Monday posted a net loss of $643,581 on $19.76 million in sales for its year ending June 30, down from a net loss of $279,606 on $19.8 million in sales in the previous fiscal.
Bevo Agro bills itself as North America’s leading supplier of propagated agricultural plants, such as vegetable, flower, berry and other plant
seedlings, primarily for wholesale vegetable greenhouse growers, field growers and nursery operators, operating out of a 34-acre production facility.
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The company said Monday it was able to cut its operating expenses by eight per cent and administrative expenses by four per cent in fiscal 2008, for total cost reductions of about $178,000.
Also, the company reported it has launched foreclosure on a mortgage receivable dated Aug. 23, 2004, which it said has been in default since December 2006. Citing “uncertainties as to the collectability” in this case, the company said it plans to take a precautionary allowance of about $630,000 against the full amount owed to it.
In total, Bevo Agro said it was able to collect on just under $10,000 in bad debts in 2008, compared to a write-off of $394,615 in bad debts the previous year.
Those gains, however, were offset by interest expenses, which were up by $310,000 or 19 per cent, the company said. Of that increase, $124,000 was a write-off of deferred financing costs and another $242,000 was made up of prepayment penalties on loans.
