Printcare picks up employees’ personal tax tab “even at cost to the company”

Continues impressive performance through Q3

Printcare PLC, the leading quoted company in the country’s printing and packaging industry, conscious of hardship imposed by the new tax regime on its employees, had decided to fully reimburse the added burden even at cost to the company, its Executive Director Krishna Ravindran said last week.

“We are lucky to have a great team of employees that have stayed focused on executing our strategy in the most challenging times. We are conscious of the additional financial burden our team has to bear as a result of the increased personal taxes, and have made a decision even at cost to the company, to reimburse the additional tax component they incur in full to ease this burden,” he said.

The company delivered a strong first nine months performance with Group revenue up 85% to Rs. 10.25 billion from Rs. 4.53 billion from the same period last year driven by an increase in the sales of its sustainable and innovative value added packaging to both its export and local markets, a company news release said.

“The cumulative profit before tax increase to just under Rs. 2.0 billion for the nine month period, a 33% growth over the profit before tax of Rs. 1.5 Bn for the corresponding period last year,” it said. “Soaring inflation, massive increase in interest rates, adverse impact on local disposable income from large tax rate increases, and continued migration of talent, have been some of the key challenges the Company faced in 2022 and continues to face in 2023.”

The release added that Printcare has a strong customer base that are market leaders in their respective industries, and so benefit from their insight into the market, which is invaluable during times like this. Printcare on its part has strived to ensure uninterrupted supply in 2022 to support customers’ growth strategies.

The outlook for 2023 will continue to be challenging, but the company will continue to engage with its customers on what packaging shifts they can foresee in their markets, based on anticipated consumer perception and regulatory changes. These insights will continue to help identify potential growth opportunities for which the company can uniquely position itself to provide winning solutions, the release said.

“Proactively identifying these sentiments and potential shifts help Printcare stay on top of trends as they develop, and also support its customers in revamping their packaging portfolio—ultimately creating significant growth opportunities, it added.

Printcare said it had focused on serving a global market since its inception over 40 years ago, and so has a history of competing with and bench marking itself against global and regional competitors. The endorsement of its products meeting top global standards recently came in the form of the prestigious Asian Packaging Excellence Awards conferred with in December, in the face of competition from 29 countries, the release concluded.