Harris Teeter 1999 Annual Report Download - page 13

9
1999 Annual Report
be utilized for products manufactured in our China
spinning plant. Given the changing nature of the industry,
we continue to alter our sales and marketing structure
to ensure excellent customer service and support and to
promote growth in sales overseas.
Even though the majority of our sales at A&E are to
the apparel industry, we believe we also have a terrific
opportunity to further expand the non-apparel, filament
thread side of our business. We believe recent devel-
opments in new products targeted at these industry
segments will allow us to expand our market share.
At the end of the last fiscal year, Ruddick’s stock closed
at $16.81. This year end it closed at $16.19, down
4%. What happened and what are you doing to
increase the stock price?
It was not the best year for many stocks in the super-
market and textile industries. In terms of cumulative total
return over a five-year period, including stock price
appreciation plus dividends, we fell only slightly behind
the index for retail food chains and far outperformed
the index for apparel-related textile companies. Our
compound annual growth rate in total return was approx-
imately 13% over the five years.With shareholder return
in mind, we also raised our dividend this year, from $.08
per quarter to $.09 per quarter. Having said this, we were
of course disappointed with the performance of our stock
price this year. It is our job to continue to accelerate our
level of communication with analysts and investors to
help them understand the programs that we have put in
place and a realistic time frame for sales growth and
improvement in profitability. We are doing this through
meetings with shareholders and potential shareholders
and through discussions with analysts.We have increased
the number of sell-side analysts that follow our company
from one to four in the last two years and this added
visibility will prove beneficial to Ruddick. We have an
exciting story to tell, but we also know that results speak
for themselves.As our financial results continue to reflect
the success of our strategies at both companies to grow
sales and improve the bottom line, we believe the correct
value will be reflected in our stock price.
After the cost-saving consolidation of its third dyeing and finishing
facility in North Carolina into A&E’s Gastonia dye house, new state-
of-the-art drying units were installed.