AMCON DISTRIBUTING CO — Earnings Release 2004

Feb 10, 2004

SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION WASHINGTON, D.C. 20549 FORM 8-K CURRENT REPORT PURSUANT TO SECTION 13 OR 15(D) OF THE SECURITIES ACT OF 1934 Date of Report (Date of earliest event reported) February 9, 2004 ------------------------------------------------------------------- AMCON DISTRIBUTING COMPANY -------------------------- (Exact name of registrant as specified in its charter) DELAWARE 0-24708 47-0702918 - ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ (State or other (Commission (IRS Employer jurisdiction of File Number) Identification No.) incorporation) 7405 Irvington Road, Omaha, NE 68122 ------------------------------------ (Address of principal executive offices) (Zip Code) (402) 331-3727 -------------- (Registrant's telephone number, including area code) Not Applicable -------------- (Former name or former address, if changed since last report) ITEM 7. FINANCIAL STATEMENTS AND EXHIBITS EXHIBIT NO. DESCRIPTION 99.1 Press release, dated February 9, 2004, issued by AMCON Distributing Company ITEM 12. RESULTS OF OPERATIONS AND FINANCIAL CONDITION. On February 9, 2004, AMCON issued a press release announcing its earnings for the first quarter ended December 26, 2003. The press release is furnished herewith as an exhibit and incorporated herein by reference. The information in this Current Report (including the exhibit) shall not be deemed to be "filed" for the purposes of Section 18 of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 or otherwise subject to the liabilities of that Section. The information in this Current Report shall not be incorporated by reference into any registration statement or other document pursuant to the Securities Act of 1933, as amended. SIGNATURE Pursuant to the requirements of the Securities and Exchange Act of 1934, the registrant has duly caused this report to be signed on its behalf by the undersigned hereunto duly authorized. AMCON DISTRIBUTING COMPANY (Registrant) Date: February 10, 2004 By : Michael D. James ------------------------- Name: Michael D. James Title: Treasurer & Chief Financial Officer EXHIBIT INDEX ------------- Exhibit Description 99.1 Press release, dated February 9, 2004, issued by AMCON Distributing Company Exhibit 99.1 NEWS RELEASE AMCON EARNS $0.16 PER SHARE IN FIRST QUARTER Omaha, NE, February 9, 2004 AMCON Distributing Company (AMEX:DIT), an Omaha, NE based consumer products company, announced today net income of $0.5 million or $0.16 per diluted share for the first quarter ended December 2003 compared with $0.3 million or $0.09 per diluted share for the first quarter of the prior year. Sales for the first quarter were $193.0 million compared to $197.7 million for the same period in the prior year. William F. Wright, Chairman of AMCON, stated that, "Even though sales for the first quarter were down, primarily due to the deflationary trend in cigarette prices, increases in sales due to increased volume in our wholesale segment and increases in sales in our retail health food and beverage segments tempered the sales loss by $10.6 million. Income (loss) before taxes for the first quarter improved by $0.9 million in the wholesale segment and by $0.4 million in the retail health food segment. Hawaiian Natural Water Company, Inc. also showed good improvement in the first quarter of the year, although this improvement was offset by greater losses in The Beverage Group ("TBG") due to the fact that last year TBG only operated for 16 days in the quarter." Wright added "In our wholesale segment, manufacturer incentive programs ended in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2003 and final payments under those programs were received in the first quarter of this fiscal year. In an attempt to help alleviate the effect of the loss of these payments in future quarters, we (and many other wholesalers) raised our cigarette prices in the first quarter of this year without any corresponding price increase from manufacturers. Our numbers for our retail health segment continued to improve with sales increasing by $0.5 million over the first quarter of the prior year and the segment operating at break even for the quarter. New management and a new, fully integrated system implementation were the catalyst for improvement in our Midwest stores which lead to the decision to begin construction of a new store in the Midwest during the first quarter of fiscal 2004. Performance also improved in our Florida stores, as we continue to focus our efforts on further improvement in the Florida market over the remainder of the year. In our beverage segment, Hawaiian Natural Water completed construction of its packaging and warehouse facility during the first quarter and changed to a new distributor in the Hawaii market. This lead to a 26% increase in natural spring water sales for the first quarter. In addition, sales of other specialty beverage products were $0.5 million compared to no sales in the first quarter of the prior fiscal year. We anticipated this for the first quarter of the current fiscal year and believe that the beverage segment will increase overall margins for our Company and its shareholders as our Company continues to reduce its reliance upon our wholesale segment." AMCON is a leading wholesale distributor of consumer products including beverages, candy, tobacco, groceries, food service, frozen and chilled foods, and health and beauty care products with distribution centers in Illinois, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wyoming. Chamberlin's Natural Foods, Inc. and Health Food Associates, Inc., both wholly-owned subsidiaries of The Healthy Edge, Inc. (formerly Food For Health Co., Inc.), operate health and natural product retail stores in central Florida (7), Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska and Oklahoma (3). The retail stores operate under the names Chamberlin's Market & Cafe and Akin's Natural Foods Market. Hawaiian Natural Water Company, Inc., which was acquired in December of 2001, produces and sells natural spring water under the Hawaiian Springs label. The water is bottled at the source on the Big Island of Hawaii. The Beverage Group, Inc. markets and distributes Hawaiian Springs and other premium beverage products, including HYPE Energy Drink, Royal Kona Iced Coffee, Bottle Green Presse and Fruit Sodas, Bahia drinks and Xterra, a line of sports beverages and energy bars, in the United States, Canada and Mexico. This news release contains forward looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties and which reflect management's current beliefs and estimates of future economic circumstances, industry conditions, Company performance and financial results. A number of factors could affect the future results of the Company and could cause those results to differ materially from those expressed in the Company's forward looking statements. Moreover, past financial performance should not be considered a reliable indicator of future performance. Accordingly, the Company claims the protection of the safe harbor for forward-looking statements contained in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 with respect to all such forward-looking statements. Visit AMCON Distributing Company's web site at: www.amcon.com 2

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FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Michael D. James Chief Financial Officer AMCON Distributing Company Tel 402-331-3727 Fax 402-331-4834 -end- 4