Prestige net income jumps 54%

Earlier on Thursday, Prestige Brands Holdings Inc. announced a 54% jump in their net income in the most recent quarter. The slashes in sales of household cleaning products were compensated by strong sales of over-the-counter medicines resulting in a net gain.

Company revenues catapulted 34% to $95 million. This was enabled due to the recent purchases of a motion-sickness medicine Dramamine, and Blacksmith Brands Holdings Inc., a company that sells Efferdent and Effergrip denture care products, PediaCare children’s medicines, Luden’s cough drops, and other products.

Although earnings for over-the-counter medicines jumped 59% to $71 million, cleaning products like Comet brand dropped 9% to $24 million. Prestige said that the creation of “a highly competitive and price sensitive” environment is attributed to the decline in sales of household cleaning products.

Prestige said that they have increased advertisements and other promotions to improve sales, and CEO Matthew Mannelly declared that they have seen a positive favorable reaction from overseas customers to ads for Chloraseptic, Sleep-Eze, and other products.

The first financial quarter that ended on June 30 saw a net income of $14.8 million, or 29 cents per share, which is a sizeable increase from $9.6 million, or 19 cents per share.

Although the company said that it gained benefits from a legal settlement, it refrained from providing any details. Earnings per share were 23 cents which matched the expectations of analysts. This was excluding the legal settlement and other one-time items.