Company News — Page 147

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

TTSE PE: Neal & Massy makes strides

January 24, 2014 by IC Insider.com

Friday, 24th January 2014 | Neal & Massy was the major mover in the Trinidad Stock market this past week as the price closed at $65.02 gaining $2.

The other stock that shared some of the spot light was First Citizens. The stock lost some ground during the week as some profit taking occurred due to appreciated so much since listing in August 2013.

Guardian Holdings inched up back to $14. One Caribbean Media closed the week up at $18.77 for a small gain. Angostura Holdings slipped a bit and so did Point Lisas.

The T&T market still provides attractive buys for investors as prices have hardly moved over the last few months for most of the stocks.

The Top Stocks with potential by PE Ratio range from Citizens Bank at the low end at 33% to Trinidad Cement at the upper end with 283%. Berger (206%), Guardian Holdings (202%), National Flour (175%) and Point Lisa (132%) round out the top five stocks with the highest potentials for price gains.

Image courtesy of Jeroen Van Oostrom/ FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Filed Under: Company News, Stock Market, TTSE Market Tagged With: PE Ratios, TTSE

Buy Rated stocks coming in

January 24, 2014 by IC Insider.com

Friday, 24th January 2014 | There has been no change to the Buy Rated or Market Watch list since our last update on Friday, 20th December, even as prices of some stocks have increased sine the start of the new year.

This week, IC Insider makes special note of the continued success of Caribbean Cement, which closed the week at $4.60, up 71 percent since our selection in November and Neal & Massy, up by 10 percent since selection in July. Republic Bank continues to inch upwards and had some gains during the week and so did One Caribbean Media.

Companies have started releasing results for the final quarter of 2013 and it will be interesting to see how these results impact on the prices of our Buy Rated selections. NCB released their results on Thursday and profit was back on line with the pre-NDX hit in 2013. The company announced an increased dividend payment compared to the first one made in 2013.

Related post | Access moved to Market Watch

Filed Under: Company News, JSE Main Market, Stock Market, TTSE Market Tagged With: JSE Company, TTSE

Carib Cream making headways but…

January 24, 2014 by IC Insider.com

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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

C2W Music receives US$21K income

January 17, 2014 by IC Insider.com

C2W Music, which has earned virtually no income since it raised funds in an IPO in 2012 is reporting what appears to be a breakthrough in the last quarter of 2013 with royalty collections.

According to the company in a recent release to the stock exchange, “We are proud to announce that during the 4th quarter of 2013, we have started to see royalty driven earnings deriving out of Barbados. These earnings have come out of the exploitation of copyrights and more specifically have been earned through the “Performing Right” collections of radio broadcast. The amount received thus far totalled USD$20,643.”

“We would also like to add, and as mentioned in a previous press release, that we continue to work closely with all Caribbean performing rights societies in creating proper integration of our systems to show an accurate collection of our royalties from the territory. Other than our own music catalogue, we sub-publish two of the world’s largest music publishers, BMG Chrysalis and Warner Chappell. We are hopeful that our collective efforts would be recognized by the 2nd quarter of 2014 and onwards, resulting in more royalty collections,” a release from the company said.

Related posts | C2W says it’s not dead | Is C2W doomed?

Filed Under: Company News, General Business News Tagged With: C2W, JSE Company

First Citizens doubles in 5 months

January 13, 2014 by IC Insider.com

When Trinidad’s First Citizens Bank stock price hit $41.54 on Friday 10th January, investors who bought shares at the initial public issue price and held until this week doubled their money in just over 5 months. The stock price gained 89 percent from the initial IPO price of $22 per shares in August. The bank declared a $1.09 per share final dividend to be paid January 24, to shareholders on record as of December 31, 2013, the Ex-dividend Date is December 27.

The dividend equivalent to a 12 percent rate of return on the IPO price, when added to the return of the stock price for persons, who got shares at the IPO price and held, have seen a 100 percent gain on their investment.

The dividend policy of the First Citizens Bank enunciated in the propectus is to distribute to its ordinary shareholders funds surplus to the operating capital and strategic requirements of the Group, as determined by the Directors, with an annual target dividend pay-out percentage range of 45 to 55 percent of net profit after-tax. The 2013 dividends translates to around $273 million versus $263 million paid for 2012.

The bank reported profits of $742 million before tax and $606.5 million after tax compared to 2012 pre-tax profit of $714 million and $446 million after tax but the big increase after tax is due to tax adjustment in 2012 that depressed the after-tax profit. Based on the 2013 results IC Insider return the stock to the BUY RATED list and project the stock price to exceed $50 per share during the course of 2014.

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

Filed Under: Company News, Initial Public Offers, Stock Market, TTSE Market Tagged With: First Citizens, TTSE

Buy Rated: Active price movements

January 10, 2014 by IC Insider.com

Friday, 10th January 2014 | Price changes saw 9 of the Buy Rated stock selection gaining during the week and 13 declining.

On the Jamaica Stock Market, the largest move was by Pan Jamaica Investment falling from $54 last week to $48.13 at the end of the week. Jamaican Teas fell 10 percent on small volume, back to $3.60. Grace Kennedy fell by 45 cents to $54.05; Hardware & Lumber dropped 9 percent from $8.down to $7.28, Lasco Manufacturing ended down 6 percent as the stock shed 8 cents to end at $1.20.

The week was not without its winners. Caribbean Producers put on 5 cents or 2 percent to close the week at $2.75 and is up 35 percent so far. General Accident is up only 2 percent since selection but gained 9 cents or 5 percent during the week.

Lasco Distributors gained 10 cents for a gain of 8 percent; Carib Cement, in making it relentless climb from obscurity, hit $4 this week but only held on to $3.80 at the end for a week’s gain of 30 cents or 9 percent. The stock is up 41 percent so far. National Commercial Bank put on 80 cents or 5 percent for the week but is still under water since selection at 12 percent.

In Trinidad, First Citizens Bank climbed to the $50 forecast level and put on 91 cents in the week. Neal & Massy gained 55 cents in the week as it is gradually gaining traction with its price moving forward.

Related posts | Buy Rated: H&L up 74%

Filed Under: Company News, JSE Main Market, Stock Market, TTSE Market Tagged With: JSE Company, TTSE

PE Ratio: First Citizens have more to do

January 10, 2014 by IC Insider.com

Friday, 10th January 2014 | During the past week on the Trinidad Stock Exchange, there were a number of companies that reached 52 weeks highs, but only First Citizens and Neal and Massy make any sizeable price movements in the week.

As such the PE chart remains roughly unchanged from the week before and continues to beckon investors to take advantage of the opportunities in that market to make above average returns.

First Citizens continues a relentless run toward what IC Insider sees as a target price of $50-60 this year. Others that we have recommended as good buys continue to increase in price but slowly. These include Republic Bank, Trinidad Cement, to name a few.

Filed Under: Company News, Stock Market, TTSE Market Tagged With: PE Ratios, Trading Activity, TTSE

Carreras pays out liquidation money

January 9, 2014 by IC Insider.com

Carreras declared a special interim capital cash distribution of $1.18 per stock unit to be paid out of proceeds received from the liquidation of a subsidiary, pending the granting of a transfer tax exemption pursuant to the Transfer Tax Act.

The special capital cash distribution will be paid on January 30, 2014 to shareholders on record as at January 17, 2014. The ex-dividend date is January 15, 2014.

Carreras liquidated its subsidiary Cigarettes Company of Jamaica but was slapped with an unwarranted tax assessment in the mid 2000’s. The case was appealed up to the Privy Council and the company won, thus permitting it to be entitled to recover nearly $3 billion in taxes wrongfully paid along with interest and legal fees.

The company started to recover the amount in 2013 and should in all likelihood recover all of it before the end of 2014.