the g spot
Aspen: over the worst
Aspen has spent much of the year clawing back from the brink of overindebtedness, helping its shares to a 2020 high of R154 in June. We spoke to CEO Stephen Saad
Aspen has spent much of the year clawing back from the brink of overindebtedness, helping its shares to a 2020 high of R154 in June. But since then the stock has given up most of its gains and results for the year to end-June show that, operationally, only its manufacturing business, which accounts for 11% of gross profit, grew its bottom line. We asked CEO Stephen Saad why.
SS: The issue for us across many of our territories was the additional cost that we incurred, particularly in our factories, during Covid. You just couldn’t be efficient: you had to close down shifts, sometimes the cost of goods spiked, so definitely some of that affected the gross margin. But if you look at our total returns — earnings before interest and tax to turnover — they increased...
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