ILT sales boosted by Central Otago operations

The Invercargill Licensing Trust’s newest acquisitions helped to boost sales during the December holiday period.

Sales in December were up by $890,000 on the previous year (9.4 per cent), largely because of the ILT’s Central Otago distribution business and the recently opened Waikiwi Tavern.

ILT general manager Greg Mulvey reported there had been a ‘‘large increase’’ in new sales into the Central Otago area.

While the ILT had been operating in Queenstown for the past 15 years, in April 2016 it acquired the assets to the liquor distribution business Beaver Liquor.

Mulvey said so far the new acquisition was meeting expectations.

‘‘The distribution business is really hitting our targets, which is good because it’s a complex business.’’

Much of the increased sales rev- enue was offset by higher operating costs, mainly because of the setup costs involved with the Waikiwi Tavern.

Lower interest rates also resulted in a decrease on the return on some of the ILT’s investments, Mulvey said.

Overall, profits in December amounted to $1,201,000, an increase of 3.4 per cent on December 2015.

Mulvey said it was another positive month with a solid underlying profit.

‘‘We’re in a good space – We’re tracking well, and anticipating that we’ll continue to track well for the rest of the year.’’

However, the unseasonably bad weather in the new year is set to put a bit of a dampener on profits for January.

While accommodation sales were up by 4 per cent in January, retail bottle store sales were down by 3 per cent.

‘‘It impacted heavily on our sales – we’ll hold up for January all right, but the weather certainly didn’t help.’’