KARACHI: ICI Pakistan’s post-tax profit rose 33.33 per cent to Rs2 billion (earnings per share Rs21.97) for the nine months ended March 31, 2016 from Rs1.5bn (eps Rs16.02) earned in the same period last year.

The company on Thursday said the rise was “mainly due to higher operating profit, dividend income from NutriCo Pakistan Ltd and ICI Pakistan PowerGen Ltd and a reduction in finance charges”.

Net turnover for the period decreased by 3pc year-on-year to Rs27.3bn from Rs28.1bn, “primarily attributable to lower sales value in the polyester business, which fell 19pc as a consequence of declining prices across the petrochemical chain”, the company said, adding that improved performance in the soda ash, life sciences and chemicals compensated for the poor financial performance of the polyester business.

FAUJI FERTILISER BIN QASIM (FFBL): The company’s consolidated after-tax profit fell 80pc year-on-year to Rs23.1bn (eps Rs0.02) during the first quarter of 2016.

Analysts at Topline Securities said it was mainly led by 23.9pc year-on-year decline in sales to Rs4.4bn owing to depressed fertiliser dynamics and low volumetric sales. This, coupled with increase in feed and fuel gas prices (from September 2015), resulted in a gross loss of Rs697 million against gross profit of Rs710m last year.

ABBOTT LABORATORIES: The firm’s profit-after-tax rose 28.2pc year-on-year to Rs721m (eps Rs7.4) during the first quarter of 2016, led by top-line growth of 14.5pc to Rs4.9bn. Gross margins expanded 2.6-percentage-point to 38.1pc, which further supported the bottom-line.

PACKAGES LIMITED: The company announced 1Q2016 consolidated earnings (attributable to equity holders) at Rs1.8bn (eps Rs20.1) against Rs772m (eps Rs8.6) in the same quarter last year.

“The results are above our expectations due to higher-than-estimated investment income and share of profit from investments under equity method,” commented analyst Muhammad Tahir Saeed.

Revenue rose 22pc year-on-year to Rs6.4bn, which was thought to be due to price rationalisation coupled with volumetric growth in consumer and packaging divisions.

Bio-mass plant at Bulleh Shah Packages came online in 4Q2015 but was currently operating below its optimum level due to technical issues that are expected to be resolved in 2016.

Published in Dawn, April 22nd, 2016