Snowman denounces media reports on business being impacted by Covid-19

May 14, 2020: The cold chain logistics provider Snowman Logistics denounced all media reports on its business being adversely affected by the Covid-19 pandemic and countrywide lockdown.

Snowman noted that prawn culture crop is excellent this year with slow exports leading to increase in its core business of cold store warehousing. The warehouse occupancy of the company also got increased by 91.5 percent.

The company decreased its debt to Rs 54 crore as of April 2020 compared to Rs 90 crore in March 2019. As Adani withdraws from its plans to acquire Snowman, the cold chain company has reinitiated its expansion plans at three locations. These plans were put on hold after signing the share purchase agreement for stake sale with Adani in December 2019.

The company press release headline reads “Clarification with respect to few media articles stating false and incorrect information about Snowman Logistics business being impacted due to COVID-19.”

The company clarification reads:

Business operations
• Company via its letter dated April 8, 2020, had informed the stock exchanges that business of Snowman Logistics Limited is considered under the 'essential services' category as per the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), and accordingly, all the warehouses of the Company are functional and fully operational
• Thus, the pandemic has not had any adverse impact on the company’s business as its operations continued during the lockdown period as well
• However, the company faced some logistical issues due to the lack of availability of drivers
• Further, this year the prawn culture crop is excellent and exports are slow leading to more storage of seafood, thereby increasing Snowman’s core business of cold store warehousing
• The seafood storage business is not impacted due to Covid-19 pandemic. The impact was in the calendar year 2019 due to the Cyclone Fani and Bulbul

Occupancy rate
• Due to the above-mentioned reasons, the warehouse occupancies at Snowman have increased to 91.5 percent as on date from 84 percent as on March 22, 2020 (i.e. before the lockdown)

Debt position
• During the year, the company has been successfully able to reduce the debt to Rs. 54 crores as on April 30, 2020, from Rs. 90 crores as on March 31, 2019
• This signifies the inherent cash-generating ability of the company

Expansion Plans
• The company has reinitiated the expansion plans at three new locations which were put on hold after signing the share purchase agreement for the stake sale.

State of the art infrastructure
• The company possesses world-class assets that comply with global standards with stringent Food Safety Management System (FSMS) processes and certifications such as ISO 22000 and British Retail Consortium (BRC)