Company Results — Page 85

D&G elevated to Buy Rated!

February 14, 2014 by IC Insider.com

Desnoes & Geddes brewers of the world renown Red Stripe beer reported profit before taxation of $2.45 billion, a 102 percent increase over the $1.2 billion generated in 2012 and net profit of $1.95 billion. The huge jump in the bottom line came from booking capital gains from the sale of its interest in two eastern Caribbean Breweries in the December quarter, which contributed $970 million to the profit. Excluding this one-off capital gain would result in the 2013 numbers coming in at $1.479 billion for pretax profit or an increase of 21 percent, and $976 million after tax versus $808 in 2012. This translates to 35 cents per share for the six months period.

Profit in the local market before administrative and selling expenses rose 22 percent to reach $1.56 billion but export profits fell slightly to $402 from $468 million in 2012. Based on the latest results, IC Insider is forecasting 80 cents per share earnings for the year to June 2014 and $1.10 for 2015. Based on the company’s expected performance, IC Insider has elevated Desnoes & Geddes to Buy Rated status.

Sales | Revenues grew 12 percent to $7.30 billion, compared with $6.5 billion in 2012 for the six months and grew by a more robust 18.5 percent in the latest quarter to $4 billion.

“The domestic portfolio continues to grow, increasing by 23 percent on growth in the brewed portfolio as well as improved pricing. Export sales declined 28 percent as the shift in production from Jamaica to the USA during the last financial year,” management stated in their release with the financials.

Gross Profit margin ended at 72 percent for the December quarter and 70.8 percent for the six months but the 2012 six months numbers were at a high of 75.8 percent.

Expenses | D&G was able to cut cost even as revenues rose. Marketing cost declined by 9 percent to $497 million, which the company attributes savings as a result of funds expended in 2012 on Jamaica’s 50th independence celebration. Cost containment and the outsourcing of the distribution of its products led to the reduction in general, selling and administrative cost with a fall of 9 percent to $542 million for the six months to December.

Finances | Cash resources climbed to $1.7 billion at the end of 2013 from $1.2 billion in 2012 but receivables jumped to $2.95 billion from just over a $1 billion in 2012 and $1.1 billion in June 2013. The company attributes the rise due mainly to full credit being given to its associated distribution company.

Filed Under: Company News, Company Results Tagged With: D&G, Jamaican Stock, JSE Company

CWJ loss down with much progress

February 14, 2014 by IC Insider.com

Cable & Wireless Jamaica released quarterly results showing a loss of $315 million compared to $438 million in 2012 from lower revenues and $120 million in restructuring cost.

The latest quarterly results showed improvement in several areas with changes in revenues and cost. The December quarter showed an overall revenue reduction of 19 percent but cost was down as well. The end result is growth in gross margin with gross profit up to $3.65 billion from $3.27 billion in 2012 and moderate improvement in the bottom-line. However, there is far more happening here than meets the eyes. The company is reporting increased revenue from cellular phone usage coming from both voice and data with a growth in the customer base year-over-year. The pace has been growing since 2012 and is up 11 percent for 2013 in US dollars and is expected to increase even more as data usage grows.

Image courtesy of nokhoog_buchachon/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

These quarterly numbers have lots of coded information about current and future performances of a company that has bled much blood in the past few years and is trying hard to recover. For the nine months, loss is $1.75 billion and is down from $2.2 billion in 2012. More importantly, the stage is set for a sharp reduction in losses going forward. Landline revenue was down in keeping with the reduction in local termination rates as well as CWJ’s cut in landline call rates during the period. A large part of the revenue reduction came from restructuring of the telephone directory cost which now leaves CWJ in a better position as the risk was reduced.

Cost savings were also achieved in restructuring commission payments to mobile credit distributors and the wage bill was down in the quarter. However, administrative and other cost rose due to the outsourcing of the maintenance work for the phone system. IC Insider believes the future is bright for CWJ and is forecasting an absolute profit in the March quarter and an overall profit in 2015 fiscal year.

CWJ grew its mobile subscriber base, increasing by 23% and quarterly mobile service revenue rose 43 percent over the 2012 prior year quarter in local currency. This increase is after the company changed its method of accounting for active users from counting customers having credit on their phones to those who actually used their phones during the last 60 days. Gary Sinclair, LIME’s Managing Director, stated that 55,000 customers were removed from the total as a result of the change. Nevertheless, the overall number of subscribers are up year-over-year and continues to grow in 2014.

In response to the question, “Is December’s income now representative of what can be expected baring growth or contraction on a quarterly basis,” Sinclair stated that EBITA is actually up in January and that is more indicative of what can be expected.

The strategy is clear, cut cost some more and grow the mobile base, the area of strong growth potential.

In trading on Thursday, investors reacted negatively to the news and sold CWJ’s stock down to 31 cents but some buying came in and drove the price up.

With growth to come in revenues and lower cost on the horizon, Cable & Wireless Jamaica is now a Buy Rated stock.

Filed Under: Company News, Company Results Tagged With: C&WJ, Jamaican Stock, JSE Company

Cargo Handlers’ solid quarter

February 7, 2014 by IC Insider.com

For the December quarter 2013, revenues excluding interest income, grew by 23 percent for the Montego Bay based and junior listed Cargo Handlers and profit reached $27.99 million, up from $22 million in 2012. Total revenues amounted to $51 million, up from $41.6 million in the previous year’s quarter and operating revenues grew by 9 percent to $44.3 million. Operating expenses grew from $20 million to $23.4 million, an increase of 15 percent.

Earnings per share rose from 53 cents to 67 cents in the quarter, an increase of 26 percent. Earnings for 2014, which ends in September, should be close to $3 per share. For the year to September 2013, the company earned $2.27 per share.

The results do not yet reflect the proposed acquisition of the tanker operating company for transporting fuel. The company indicates that the acquisition should be concluded during February. A deposit of $69 million against the purchase was made and is included in receivables on the balance sheet in December at $95 million, an increase over $19 million as of September 2013. Cash is down from $131 million in September to $69 million at the end of December. The company is debt free.

The purchase will be fully in cash so there should be further depletion of cash when the deal is concluded. There should be some administrative cost savings as some of the functions now done by the transport company can be transferred to Cargo Handlers thus saving on cost.

A dividend of 50 cents per share was just declared by the company and is payable in March 6, 2014.

Filed Under: Company News, Company Results Tagged With: Cargo Handlers, Jamaican Stock, JSE Company

Slight gain for Republic Q1 profit

February 4, 2014 by IC Insider.com

Profit for the quarter of Republic Bank’s first quarter to December 2013 just barely rose to $303 million, up from $296 million in 2012 as net revenues inched up by 2.4 percent to $860 million from $840 in 2012. Operating cost rose faster than revenue gains, ending up at $449 million compared to $421 million in the prior period. It was not all gloom, as loan provision fell to just $2 million compared to $17 million in 2012 and share of associated profit came to $12.7 million versus just $44,000 in 2012.

Profit attributable to Republic’s shareholders came in at $291 million versus $285 million in 2012. For the full year to September 2013, the banking group reported profit of $1.17 billion. Territorially, in the latest quarter Trinidad accounted for $434 million in pretax profit up from $431 million in 2012. Barbados pretax profit contribution was down marginally to $39.4 million from $39.8 million and other territories contributed $63.6 million compared to $63.2million in 2012.

Loans grew by 6.5 percent annualized in the quarter, which is a slower pace than the 7.3 percent growth year over year to December. The difference is not great, but Republic will need to pick-up lending growth to start getting a reasonable growth in profits. There is much scope for increased lending with loans of only $25.6 billion lent out of a total balance sheet of nearly $58 billion in assets and deposits of $545.8 billion.

The Trinidad economy is estimated to have grown by 2.8 percent in 2013. Most likely growth will pick up in 2014. An improving economy should lay the foundation for an uptick in lending over and above what the bank achieved for the last fiscal year and help to move profit up at a faster pace than in the December quarter.

Republic Bank is an ICInsider Buy Rated stock. To view the full list, click here.

Filed Under: Company News, Company Results Tagged With: Republic Bank, TTSE

Cable & Wireless up 56% in January

February 1, 2014 by IC Insider.com

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Company News, Company Results Tagged With: C&WJ, Jamaican Stock, JSE Company, Lime

Lasco Financial’s marketing investment

January 29, 2014 by IC Insider.com

The latest quarterly report to December 2013, shows that Lasco Finance Services pumped in funds to nearly double its promotional cost to push for a greater share of the remittance business, resulting in heightened marketing and selling cost from $111 in 2012 million to $204 million in 2013.

In the December quarter the cost was pushed to $87 million compared to just $36 million in 2012. The increase spend in this area kept profits down to $46 million versus $55 million in the December 2012 quarter and for the nine months period $136 million or 20.6 percent above the 2012 results for the similar period. Administrative cost rose by a strong 26 percent for the year to September but by the end of 2013, the rate of increase fell to 22 percent as the December quarter increased by only 15 percent to reach $47.5 million and for the nine months $144 million versus $118 million.

With the reduced spend on promotion that should flow with the completion of the World Cup promo, profit should end the year around $220 million and that would be up from $164 million in 2013 or earnings of 18 cents per share.

“In pursuit of our strategic objective to increase our market share in the remittance industry, towards the end of the 2nd Quarter, we launched our Brazil 2014 promotion which lasted until December 31, 2013. This investment contributed to the more than 100% increase in selling and promotional expenses. We anticipate that the resulting rise in transactions from this awareness campaign will continue into the future periods,” management stated in release accompanying the results.

As the promotion ended, the March quarter figures should reflect much lower cost in this area and with that increased profit. Trading income in the quarter rose by a strong 42 percent to reach $176 million and for the nine months period the growth was 42.6 percent taking it to $469 million.

The financials remain strong with equity of $610 million, liabilities of only $95 million and cash of $302 million.

Lasco Financial is an IC Insider Buy Rated Stock. To view the full list, click here.

Related posts | Buy Rated stocks coming in | Lasco Financial profit rise

Filed Under: Company News, Company Results Tagged With: JSE Company, Lasco

39% hike for NCB dividend

January 28, 2014 by IC Insider.com

The Board of Directors of National Commercial Bank (NCB) announced a 39 percent hike in the latest dividend that has been declared. The banking group will be paying the interim dividend of 32 cents per ordinary stock unit on February 20, 2014 to stockholders on record as at February 7, 2014. Last year, NCB’s first dividend for the year was 23 cents that was paid in March and on May 24, 16 cents per share.

NCB also reported earnings for the first quarter to December indicating that operations are back to normal coming out of 2013 when profits were negatively impacted by the government debt swap. Profit after tax came out at $2.856 billion versus profits of $2.786 billion and for the September 2013 and $1.778 billion after writing off some large one-time expenses. Earnings per share amounted to $1.16 and should reached around $5 for the year, barring any major negative developments.

Total revenues climbed by 15 percent to $13.75 billion compared to $11.967 billion.

While net revenues grew from $9.16 billion to $10.47 billion, expenses grew from $5.78 billion to $7.34 billion resulting in reduced operating profit of $300 million. A $301 million gain from on acquisition of a subsidiary counter balanced the reduced operating profit. Bad loan provision was down from $563 million to $390 million, but policy holders cost climbed by a billion dollars with the acquisition of Advantage General Insurance Company.

Looking forward, loans grew 27 percent or $31.8 billion to $148 billion from December 2012 and deposits were up 10 percent to $194 billion.

Filed Under: Company News, Company Results, Dividends Tagged With: JSE Company, NCB

Carib Cream making headways but…

January 24, 2014 by IC Insider.com

Caribbean Cream, the ice cream maker, is making headways as profits made big jump with an increase of 5,000 percent to reach $11 million in November 2013 quarter, up from only $222,000 after tax in the 2012 November quarter. Profit before tax was $3.9 million in the 2012 but as a recent Junior Stock market listing, the company is not subject to corporate tax in 2013.

The revenue improved 14 percent from $165.5 million to $188.8 million for the November quarter. However, sharp rises in electricity, depreciation, audit and accounting, security and other administrative and interest cost robbed Caribbean Cream of a better bottom line. Nevertheless, the company saw a 186 percent increase in profit before tax for the quarter, and for the 9 months, profit is up 45 percent to $28.7 million compared with $19.8 million in 2012.

Administrative cost rose sharply by 50 percent for the nine months to $80.86 million up from $54 million in 2012. This is of concern as it has risen too fast and has partially eroded the improvement generated in the revenue growth.

The company was able to squeeze more gross profit out of the operations this past year with a margin of 37 percent for the quarter, surging over the 24.7 percent of 2012 and 29.6 percent year-to-date compared to 26 percent for the same period in 2012. The latest quarter revenues reflected the lowest growth rate for the year-to-date with the February and April quarters climbing by 48 percent each and 27 percent for the July quarter.

Impressive as the growth in profit is, earnings per share was only 8 cents for the nine months, which is inadequate to drive interest in the stock even with management’s promise of continued expansion in retail outlets and growth in sales as well as the reduction in production cost due to the installation of new machinery.

Our estimate for earnings for the current fiscal year is 15 cents, and for the next year 50 cents. There is quite some room for the stock to appreciate during this year barring some bad quarterly results.

Filed Under: Company News, Company Results Tagged With: JSE Company

Berger keeps profit gains

January 21, 2014 by IC Insider.com

Berger Paints reported continued gains in profit for the current year which ends in March with a 30.7 percent increase for the December quarter and 33.7 percent for the nine months period.

The growth for the period is down on the performance to September last year when profit was up 80 percent for the six months and revenues grew by 12 percent after a 17.8 percent jump in the September quarter. Revenues gained only 6 percent for the December quarter and 9.3 percent year to date. Cost reduction would have facilitated to robust increase in net profit out turn. Profits after tax amounted to $51 million from the quarter versus $39 million in 2012 and $64 million year to date compared to $48 million in 2012 on revenues of $622 million for the quarter and $1.409 billion for the nine months. The information was disclosed in an abridged version of the interim report that provided no details of expenses.

Berger has current assets of $792 million at the end of December and current liabilities of only $149 million with equity capital of $522 million.

After paying a dividend of $27.86 million in July, the company had cash on hand in December amounting to $58 million that is down from $163 million at the end of December 2012 and $130 million at the end of the March 2013, but the cash position is an improvement over the $33 million on hand at the end of September.

A lot of Berger’s fortunes are tied to the buoyancy of the construction sector. The sector had not been performing well since 2008 and that has weighed down on the company’s fortunes. The moderate increase in the monetary value of sales is a reflection of the challenges they face. What has been the major attraction for the stock is the tendency for a high dividend payout that enhances the rate of return on investment for outside investors.

Filed Under: Company News, Company Results Tagged With: Berger Paints, JSE Company

Scotiabank T&T making headway slowly

December 31, 2013 by IC Insider.com

Most banks in the English speaking Caribbean are facing challenging economic environment with slow growth and moderate increase in profits.

The stalemate in the Trinidad & Tobago economy has not left Scotiabank out of its reach. The bank is reporting net income after tax of $561 million for the year ended 31 October 2013, an increase of $15.6 million or 2.9% over the same period last year. The profit flowed from revenues of $1.389 billion in net income versus of $1.287 billion in 2012. Of note is the increase in income in the last quarter of $384 million or 16 percent over the $331 earned in 2012. The increased income came all from other income not net interest.

Profits after tax rose by 11 percent or a faster pace than the full year’s growth and may be an indication that the pace of growing profits may well be picking up. However, the pace is so low that a clearer picture may have to await the first quarter results. There was no growth in the main income generator of lending with loans standing at $10.576 billion at the end of the year compared to $10.45 as of July but from $9.96 billion at the end of October 2012. Total Assets ended the period at $19.5 billion, representing growth of 10.2% or $1.8 billion over the comparative period in 2012.

“Conditions in the domestic economy remain challenging, with continuing margin compression due to persistently low interest rates and high liquidity. It is against this backdrop that the Bank continues to focus on growing income through building and maintaining strong customer relationships and diversification of its revenue base through the launch of new products and services. Our strategies to manage credit quality and recoveries continue to bear fruit as evidenced by the reduction in credit losses year over year. Finally, we continue to manage expenses while ensuring we invest in our brand, people and infrastructure” management reported to shareholders.

On the basis of the results, Directors resolved that the Bank pay a fourth interim dividend of 40 cents per ordinary share and a special dividend of 30 cents (32 cents in 2012, plus a special dividend of 28 cents) on 7 January 2014 to shareholders on record at 9 December 2013.

Filed Under: Company News, Company Results Tagged With: Scotia, TTSE