Shareholders of Angostura, the local rum and bitters company, are toasting news that the company plans to increase its core earnings by 72 per cent from $0.58 per share at the end of 2010 to $1 by the end of this year.Speaking at the Angostura's annual general meeting yesterday, the company's CEO Wayne Yip Choy also predicted that the company's share price would reach $10 by the end of 2011.And he said that he would be "very disappointed" if he was not able to drive Angostura's core earnings to $1.50 by the end of his employment contract in December 2012, which would translate to a share price of $15.
The Angostura CEO also said that he would recommend to the board the resumption of the company's dividend payments in the second half of 2011 as the enterprise was generating a great deal of cash.Yip Choy's upbeat predictions came as the company in 2010 recorded its first profitable year since 2004 and the return of the company to the local stock market, after its suspension in July 2009.
Angostura's share price has jumped by 60 per cent in the last six weeks as it closed yesterday at $8 a share. At the annual meeting yesterday at the company's office in Laventille, shareholders' gave the company's board and executive "thumbs up" regarding its good performance and its ability to make a complete turn around.After being able to reverse its negative net worth position into a positive equity with earnings per share of $0.58 from negative $0.43, Yip Choy said he was confident that he could achieve such a feat by 2012.n Reporting by Dixie-Ann Dickson