Revenues for the fourth quarter were $35.7 million compared to $33.7 million in the third quarter, 2007, an increase of 6% quarter on quarter. Excluding the impact of once-off charges, operating profit for the quarter was $2.3 million which represents an increase of 77% over the previous quarter’s operating profit of $1.3 million. On a similar basis, profit before tax more than doubled to $1.5 million when compared to the third quarter, 2007 profit before tax of $0.6 million.
Operating profit (before the once-off charges associated with the restructuring, inventory write off and impairment) for the same period increased to $10.6 million from $7.7 million, representing an increase of 37%. EBITDA and share option expense for the year increased from $15 million in 2006 to $19.8 million in 2007, before the impact of once-off charges.
Gross profit before once-off charges for the fourth quarter amounted to $17.3 million representing a gross margin of 48.3%. This compares favourably to the gross margin of 46.8% for the same period in 2006 and 45.3% for third quarter of 2007.
Brendan Farrell, CEO of Trinity, said: “We believe that Trinity Biotech is very well positioned to achieve strong growth in the coming quarters during which time we will see the impact of the launch of our Tri-stat point of care HbA1c product, our HIV Incidence Assay, our new product for the detection of neo-natal haemoglobin variant analysis and our Destiny Max haemostasis analyzer.”