FORT LAUDERDALE, FL--(Marketwire - Nov 14, 2012) - Ocean Bio-Chem, Inc. (NASDAQ: [ OBCI ]), a leading manufacturer and distributor of appearance, performance, and maintenance products serving the marine, automotive, power sports, recreational vehicle and outdoor power equipment markets, announced today that net sales for the three months ended September 30, 2012 increased approximately 4% to $10.3 million compared to sales of $9.9 million in the same period in 2011. The Company was profitable for the 15^th consecutive quarter, reporting net income of $770,618 or $0.09 per common share, diluted. Net income for the three months ended September 30, 2011 totaled $1.1 million or $0.13 per common share, diluted.

"Net sales increased in the third quarter because of our successful effort to market winterizing products, including antifreeze, to marine customers, a sector that saw double digit growth in sales volume," said Ocean Bio-Chem, Inc. CEO Peter Dornau. "In addition, we continued to see sales growth of our enzyme fuel treatment product StarTron® in the automotive and small engine markets."

"Ocean Bio-Chem made the marketing decision to significantly increase its advertising and promotion budget by approximately 65 percent in the third quarter of 2012. While this decreased net income for the quarter, it goes a long way toward cementing our future success by moving toward increasing our market share in important new segments including outdoor power equipment, motorcycling, power sports equipment, and the automotive market. Our plan is to accomplish the promotional groundwork now to increase sales in future quarters and we are already seeing sales improvements," said Gregor M. Dornau, Vice President - Sales & Marketing.

"In the third quarter we experienced lower gross margins as a percent of sales, due to our continued reduction in inventories, which led to lower manufacturing cost absorption," said Jeffrey S. Barocas, CFO. "We have reduced our inventories by $1.1 million worth of products over the last 12 months. Major customers no longer want to store large amounts of inventory but rather are striving toward 'same day' delivery systems. In addition, there was a higher mix of lower margin products in the third quarter."

Barocas continued, "Net income excluding non cash items were approximately $2.4 million or $0.28 per share diluted. For the three months ending September 30, 2012 net income excluding non cash items was approximately $1 million or $0.12 per share."

Net sales for the nine months ended September 30, 2012 totaled $24.1 million, down slightly from net sales of $24.8 million in the same period in 2011. Net income for the nine months in 2012 totaled $1.5 million, or $0.18 per common share, diluted compared to $2.1 million, or $0.26 per common share, diluted in 2011. The complete Form 10-Q filing is available at [ www.sec.gov ]. 

"At the end of September 2012 the Company had $1.7 million in short term debt, which we paid off within 20 days in October. We have no short term debt and our cash position moving forward is excellent," the Company's CEO, Peter Dornau said. "Also, results so far indicate an increase in sales for the fourth quarter. We are cautiously optimistic that this positive trend will continue through the balance of 2012," Mr. Dornau said.

About Ocean Bio-Chem, Inc.:

Ocean Bio-Chem, Inc. is principally engaged in the manufacturing, marketing and distribution of a broad line of appearance and maintenance products for boats, recreational vehicles, automobiles, power sports, outdoor power equipment and motorcycle markets under the Star brite® StarTron® and other trademarks within the United States of America and Canada. In addition, the Company produces private label formulations of many of its products for various customers and provides custom blending and packaging services for these and other products.

The Company trades publicly under NASDAQ Capital Markets, Ticker Symbol: OBCI.

The Company's web sites are: [ www.oceanbiochem.com ], [ www.starbrite.com ] and [ www.startron.com ].

Forward-looking Statements:
Certain statements contained in this Press Release including without limitation expectations as to future sales and operating results, constitute forward-looking statements. For this purpose, any statements contained in this report that are not statements of historical fact may be deemed forward-looking statements. Without limiting the generality of the foregoing, words such as "believe," "may," "will," "expect," "anticipate," "intend," "could" including the negative or other variations thereof or comparable terminology are intended to identify forward-looking statements. These statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause our actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Factors that may affect these results include, but are not limited to, the highly competitive nature of our industry, reliance on certain key customers, changes in consumer demand for marine, recreational vehicle and automotive products, advertising and promotional efforts, exposure to market risks for changes in interest rates and in foreign exchange rates, and other factors.