Pethealth reports Q1 results
Pet insurance and tracking company Pethealth Inc. has cited the appreciation of the Canadian dollar as a major reason for a decline in first-quarter earnings.
The Oakville, Ont.,-based company said it earned $528,000 or less than a penny a share in the quarter ended March 31, down from a net profit of $902,000 or a cent a share in the same period last year. Revenue was $8.4 million, down four per cent from $8.7 million in 2009.
“The 20 per cent and 10 per cent appreciation of the Canadian dollar against the U.S. dollar and the British pound, respectively, had a significant impact on comparative year-over-year quarterly results,” Pethealth said in a news release.
Pethealth Inc. reports its financial results in two segments: insurance operations and non-insurance operations. Insurance consist of the distribution and administration of the PetCare, Pet Protect, petPals, ShelterCare, QuickCare, CherryBlue and other co-branded, white-labelled or private-labelled pet insurance programs. Its non-insurance operations are made up of its 24PetWatch and Pet Protect manufacturer-neutral pet registry and recovery service, the distribution of RFID microchip technology, the development and distribution of PetPoint, its animal shelter management software program, and Petango.com, its on-line pet portal which includes its online adoptable search engine, thePetangoStore.com and social networking.
Revenue in the insurance segment was $6.3 million in the quarter, down eight per cent from $6.9 million in 2009, while non-insurance revenue was 2.1 million, up 10 per cent from $1.9 million.
“Taking into account the considerable foreign exchange impact on our business, I am pleased with our results for Q1,” president and chief executive Mark Warren said in a news release. “On a year-on-year basis, policy sales are up, insurance policy cancellations are down, microchipping sales remain robust, and an ever-increasing number of animal welfare organizations are choosing Pethealth to provide them with their software, microchipping, data hosting, and insurance solutions,” he said.
“While I was disappointed that our commercial insurance program . . . did not lead to new business during the quarter due to us having to make coverage adjustments in our program, we are now in a position to generate commission income from it over the rest of 2010 and beyond,” he said.
