Lasco Financial Services’ profit that grew 20 percent in the June quarter, and 28 percent in the September quarter, to reach $65 million. The second quarter profit, grew faster than the 19 percent revenue growth to $188 million over 2013, slightly more than in the first quarter’s revenue of $178 million and $145 million, in the March 2014 quarter.
For the six months to September, profit is up by 25 percent to $112 million or 9 cents per share and revenue climbed 14 percent to $366 million from $303 million in 2013. All things being equal, the full year earnings to March next year should exceed 20 cents per share.
Cost rose 19 percent in the six months as increased marketing cost helped push cost up, but the increase for the September quarter was only 14 percent. The company is embarking on some new initiatives to expand the business. One will be the utilization of 14 locations island-wide for the provision of loans. They indicated earlier this month that they have already signed an agreement to facilitate this. New software that that has been installed will allow for Money Grams’ data to reside locally and thus speed up the processing in the money transfer transactions, thus creating a better experience for their customers. The focus in this area, is a partial recognition that that the traditional business of cambio and to a lesser degree remittance services are fairly matured and growth has to be explored elsewhere.
Lasco Financial should generate in excess of 40 percent return on equity for the current fiscal year. As of September, equity stood at $726 million, loans and other receivables on the books is at $325 and cash funds $448 million.
A look at Access with return on equity of more than 50 percent, contrast with Lasco Financial more than 40 percent. For one, it indicates that high risk lending is very profitable area if done right as well as the benefit that leveraging can deliver, with Access borrowing funds to relend versus Lasco using its own capital alone.