re: (Alert!) SDI net profit up 49pc (FULL ANNOUNCE SDI - ASX...

re: (Alert!) SDI net profit up 49pc (FULL ANNOUNCE SDI - ASX Company Announcement
$hmb5 THIS IS A PRIORITY ITEM
19 August 2002
Part 1/4
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SDI LIMITED
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HOMEX - Melbourne
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Preliminary Final Report

SDI DELIVERS ... AND EXPECTS MORE OF THE SAME

The Board of Directors of SDI Limited today announced a 49% increase
in Profit After Tax to $4.01M for the year ended 30 June 2002.
Profit Before Tax increased 61% to $5.64M with Earnings Before
Interest and Tax up 59% at $5.93M.

This strong result was achieved on revenues of $35.4M, an increase of
23.8% over the prior year. Earnings per share of 17.2c were up 48.3%
on the prior year and the Company delivered a Return on Equity of
22.7%.

SDI also achieved strong growth in net operating cash flow increasing
from $1.52M in the prior year to this year's result of $5.49M.

Commenting on the result, SDI Chairman, Russell Smith, noted that
this financial result had been an outstanding effort by staff in a
year of significant financial turmoil in world markets initially
destabilised by the well documented events of September 11. "This
performance has well demonstrated the recession proof nature of our
business and products which have performed exceptionally well in both
existing and newly developed markets", Mr Smith said.

Mr Smith further noted that the strength of the SDI global
distribution network in over 70 countries together with the Company
policy of establishing its own management teams in key and emerging
markets was responsible for achieving and exceeding Company sales
growth targets. "The dental materials industry continues to grow
globally by approximately 5-8% annually and despite our success, SDI
probably only has 2% of the estimated world market. This should
underpin our tremendous growth potential for many years to come", Mr
Smith said.

Referring to the Company's ability to deliver earnings growth at a
rate more than double sales growth in the year ended 30 June 2002,
SDI's Managing Director, Jeffery Cheetham, explained that, firstly,
the Company's sales had achieved the necessary "critical mass" to
enable optimisation of manufacturing production efficiencies. "Our
unit cost of production continues to reduce as our manufacturing
volumes grow and with the ongoing introduction of more sophisticated
high volume, high speed machinery and new technologies, this pattern
should continue", Mr Cheetham said.

Secondly, as well as expanding SDI's marketing in established and new
markets such as Spain and Mexico, Mr Cheetham emphasised SDI's
imminent plans to launch to market more "new generation" products.
"We are confident that these products which have been developed in
house by our research and development team will generate high demand
and high margins".

Mr Cheetham concluded, "these two factors enable us to target annual
sales growth of 20% for the foreseeable future which should translate
favourably to earnings per share growth."

The Board declared a final dividend of 3 cents (2001:2c) lifting
total dividend for the year to 5 cents, an increase of 67% over the
prior year (3c). The dividend will be fully franked and will be paid
on 22 October 2002.

Further information, please contact:

Jeffery Cheetham - CEO (03) 8727 7111
Gerry Bullon - INVESTOR RELATIONS 0418 106 675

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