New CEO Douglas Faggioli, who took over in November, is currently overseeing a recently launched restructuring program, involving a 5 per cent reduction in the company's workforce. The reorganisation is expected to lead to annual savings of between $7.0 and $9.0 million.
The company saw little growth in sales revenue over the year until the final quarter, when it surged 10 per cent to $78.8 million, on the back of a 32 per cent rise in international sales. This compared to a sluggish 3 per cent decline on the home market.
Success in international markets was driven by Nature's Sunshine's network marketing subsidiary Synergy Worldwide, which it acquired at the end of 2001. Synergy, already operating in Japan and Taiwan, set up on the Thailand market last summer and saw gross sales rise almost five-fold to $7.9 million in the fourth quarter.
Nature's Sunshine has also seen good sales in Russian federation markets, Singapore, Central America, Venezuela and the UK, it said.
"Our international operations demonstrated some resiliency that we expect to continue into the current year," commented Faggioli.
The cost saving measures also began to have an effect during the final quarter. Nature's Sunshine said it spent around $2.4 million in the third quarter on restructuring and reducing staff in both domestic and international operations.
While this affected the year's profits, which fell by 28 per cent to $5.1 million, income in the fourth quarter almost doubled to $2.9 million.
"We have a few issues and challenges that must be addressed but we are looking forward to continued progress," added the CEO.