Tuesday 5 June 2018

Sri Lanka's CT Holdings March profits fall 33-pct

ECONOMYNEXT - Profits at Sri Lanka's CT Holdings, the parent company of supermarket chain Cargills, fell 33 percent from a year earlier to 202.7 million rupees in the March 2018 quarter despite real estate gains and lower finance costs, interim accounts showed.

The group reported earnings of 1.09 rupees a share, according to interim financial statements filed with the Colombo Stock Exchange. The stock last traded at 177.10 rupees.

"The challenging macro-economic environment adversely impacted operating margins of both the retail and wholesale distribution, and FMCG sectors," the company told shareholders in a stock exchange filing.

In the year to end March 2018, CT Holdings reported profits of 2.6 billion rupees, up 50 percent from a year ago, with revenue increasing 8 percent to 92 billion rupees.

"Profits were boosted by the profit on disposal of a property owned by the group. Proceeds from the sale were used to retire debt which resulted in lower borrowings costs during the last two quarters of the year," CT Holdings said.

In the March 2018 quarter, gross profit grew 13 percent to 2.6 billion rupees on revenue increasing 12 percent to 22.8 billion rupees and cost of sales also growing by 12 percent to 20.2 billion rupees.

Distribution costs fell 53 percent to 977 million rupees and administrative expenses declined 2 percent to 1.2 billion rupees.

Net finance costs fell 13 percent to 277 million rupees.

The group reported a gain of 850.2 million rupees on revaluation of freehold land.

During the year to end March 2018, profits from the group's retail business which includes supermarket chain Cargills fell 9 percent in the year to 2.8 billion rupees.

The group added 38 new outlets during the year taking the number of supermarkets to 353.

The fast moving goods business which includes dairy, agri, fresh and processed meats and confectionery saw sales increase by 6 percent to 2 billion rupees.

Real estate saw profits grow 226 percent to 1.7 billion helped by a 1 billion rupee gain from the sale of a parcel of property in Colombo for 4 billion rupees during the year.

The restaurants business which includes the KFC franchise saw profits grow 43 percent to 382 million rupees.

The group's movie business reported a 43 million rupees loss compared to a profit of 31 million rupees a year earlier, despite expanding its theatre network with four new screens in Gampaha and Nuwara Eliya.

The group also made a 255 million rupees gain from the disposal of a subsidiary of associate business Cargills Bank.

No comments:

Post a Comment