Saturday, 2 February 2019

Sri Lanka's JKH net up 7-pct in Dec quarter

ECONOMYNEXT - Sri Lanka's John Keells Holdings, which has operations in logistics, leisure, consumer goods and financial services said profits grew 7 percent from a year earlier in the December 2018 quarter to 4.8 billion rupees, helped by container operations and a forex gain.

The group reported earnings of 3.46 rupees per share. For the nine months to December JKH reported earnings of 8.71 rupees per share, on total profits of 12.0 billion rupees which were up 9 percent.

Revenues grew 17 percent to 36.5 billion rupees, cost of sales grew at a faster 20 percent to 29.1 billion rupees and gross profits grew 7 percent to 7.37 billion rupees.

Finance income grew 48 percent to 3.8 billion rupees, helped by gains in foreign currency cash holdings.

On December 25, the firm had paid out 11.1 billion rupees to shareholders in a share buyback.

Pre-tax profits at its transportation group had risen 16 percent to 1.1 billion rupees with its container terminal in Colombo port growing volumes 8 percent. SAGT had handled an all time high of 2 million containers in 2018, out of a total of 7 million at the port.

Though Lanka Marine Services, JKH's ship bunkering unit had seen volumes grow 7 percent, profits had been hit by a sharp fall in oil prices.

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