Ann: Share Purchase Plan oversubscribed, page-6

It has been profitable but much of those core items PTL sells (White King, Country Life soap, Softly laundry products, Jiffy Firelighters) are either low margin or mostly sold in WOW/COL and so I'd imagine subject to rigorous contracts where the supermarket buyers really 'screw down' manufacturers (not just PTL!)

In a very small note to the annual report it's had to write down by about A$400000 the value of some stock of Huggies (fabric softener and the like) that I had noticed when shopping at WOW had been deleted from ranged items.

Constant changing of items carried by 'the majors' is a real problem for manufacturers. Aldi/COL/WOW and presumably Costco all love to replace branded items with private label. MTS' IGAs are not quite as bad (and Freddo from Ritchies IGAs is on the PTL Board).

However PTL has tried to expand its lines and where they're stocked.

Chemist Warehouse stocks Soap for Tradies, an alternative to foreign-owned (USA) Solvol, plus AIM toothpaste. The latter is also sold by online Pharmacy Direct. I need to purchase the toothpaste to see what it's like.

Bunnings apparently now carries some White King and maybe a couple of other PT:L lines.

If you look at the annual report, so-called 'toll manufacturing' (i.e. private label) is also profitable but less so than the branded products. This is logical.