Ropak Rebounds, Posts $1.3-Million Profit for ’92

FULLERTON — Ropak Corp., which makes plastic packaging, reported Thursday that it earned $1.3 million for 1992 after having lost nearly the same amount for the previous year.

Sales were relatively unchanged at $94.8 million, an increase of 1% over sales of $94 million for 1991.

Cost cutting helped bring the Fullerton-based company back to profitability, officials said. Ropak cut its costs by selling back marketing rights to InVitro International, in which it had heavily invested, and related subsidiaries in Japan and France. InVitro, based in Irvine, makes testing kits used for checking compounds that go into cosmetics and household chemicals. Its products are offered as an alternative to animal testing.

Annual earnings per share for Ropak, which is traded on the NASDAQ market, were 30 cents, compared with a loss of 33 cents a share for 1991.

Mark Matheson, an analyst for the brokerage Crowell, Weedon & Co. in Los Angeles, said he expects the company’s future performance to be mixed. Ropak in general will perform better when the recession lets up, he said, but some of its products in more competitive markets may not do well.

For the fourth quarter, the company reported a profit of $85,000, or 2 cents a share, after adjusting for a tax credit. That compared with a loss of $1.5 million, or 40 cents a share, for the same period a year earlier. The company usually posts lower earnings and sales for the fourth quarter that during the rest of the year because of seasonal slowdowns. The three-month loss at the end of 1991 was unusually large, however, because the company put aside $600,000 to offset litigation costs in a patent infringement case, said Ronald W. Cameron, chief financial officer.

For the final quarter of 1992, sales totaled $18.2 million, down 5% from $19.1 million a year earlier.