Its earnings season for Jamaican stocks and usually most companies would have posted first-quarter results already. The Jamaica Stock Exchange has permitted companies to publish results later, due to the Coronavirus outbreak and the disruption caused to businesses.
Caribbean Flavours Derrimon’s subsidiary
Some results have been lower than for last year’s first quarter, but a number of them have posted robust increases. Outstanding results published last week were led by Grace Kennedy with a 50.6 percent spike in profit before tax, to $1.99 billion for the March quarter, while profit after tax attributable to shareholders of the group rose an impressive 47 percent, to $1.32 billion. tTech’s profit for the March quarter climbed 5,375 percent from $758,000 to $4.15 million as revenues rose a healthy 32 percent. Revenues grew 33 percent to $149 million at Caribbean Flavours while profits before tax rose 31 percent to $19 million from $14.4 million, profit after tax rose 19 percent to $14.2 million. The first-quarter profit is 45 percent of the 2019 full-year results.
Revenues at 138 Student Living climbed 29 percent to $278 million for the February quarter and 71 percent to $734 million for the half-year, with profit ending at $87 million, for earnings per share (EPS) of 21 cents for the quarter, up from a loss of $68 million in 2019. Profit for the half-year to February was $270 million, with EPS of 65 cents, up from a loss of $67 million in 2019. Profit at Eppley jumped 541 percent over the 2019 outturn of just $6 million after-tax to $40 million, with EPS of 21 cents.
Kingston Wharves profit rose 22%.
Kingston Wharves results for the quarter ended in March rose two percent to $1.9 billion, over the corresponding period in 2019 while net profit attributable to shareholders increased 22 percent or $101 million over the prior year, to $554 million. Sterling Investments reported a profit of US$4.6 million, versus a loss of US$7.2 million in the March 2019 period as a significant swing around in exchange gains pushed earnings higher for the March 2020 period.
Prior to this past week, Barita Investments reported a 25 percent rise in March quarter profit and 96 percent increase in the half-year results, profit for the first quarter at Derrimon Trading rose 34 percent to 91.6 million from a 5.5 percent rise in sales revenues, a rise of $18 million in other revenue and a drop in finance cost from $58 million to $49 million. iCreate increased revenues by 106 percent to $24.5 million for the three months to March with net Profit of $1.25 million, up from a loss of $1.48 million made in 2019. Pulse Investments profit rose 136 percent for the March quarter profit and 121 percent for the, nine months to March, Seprod profit for the March quarter increased 103 percent and Mailpac Group reported 71 percent increase in first-quarter profit
