KARACHI: Pakistan State Oil (PSO) logged strong growth in earnings during the nine months through March as its after-tax profit swelled 209 per cent year-on-year to Rs14.2 billion. Earnings per share rose to Rs52.10 from Rs16.91.

The oil marketing company’s net sales jumped 29pc to Rs629bn and gross profit more than doubled to Rs27bn. However, the share of profit contributions from associated companies fell 12.6pc to Rs536 million.

The results remained largely in line with expectations, according to Analyst Faizan Ahmed at JS Global. He recalled that the company skipped dividend during the July-December 2016 due to cash constraints emanating from increasing power-sector receivables.

Lucky Cement Ltd: The cement giant’s after-tax profit rose 8.4pc to Rs10.42bn (or Rs32.23 per share) during July-March, the company said in a statement.

Net sales inched up 5.4pc to Rs35.24bn, due mainly to increase in sales volume. Local sales volume grew 18.6pc to 4.6m tonnes, whereas exports declined 24pc to 0.93m tonnes.

On a consolidated basis, Lucky Cement posted an after-tax profit of Rs12.05bn for the nine-month period, up 9.3pc year-on-year.

The company reported progress in its key local and international projects, i.e. brownfield expansion (installation of new production line) at its Karachi plant, fully integrated greenfield cement manufacturing plant in Punjab, investment in automobile manufacturing plant under licence from Kia Motors Corporation, brownfield expansion in cement grinding unit in Iraq, and a 660-megawatt, supercritical coal-based power project at Port Qasim.

Nishat Mills Ltd: Nishat, Pakistan’s biggest composite textile mill, posted an after-tax profit of Rs3.09bn (Rs8.78 per share) for July-March, down 13pc year-on-year.

Net sales increased by 3pc to Rs37.2bn during July-March and by 5pc to Rs13.3bn in the January-March quarter as compared to the same periods of last year.

Analysts reckoned that the higher sales were due to incorporation of drawback on local taxes and levies, which stood around Rs375 in the quarter under review.

GlaxoSmithKline Pakistan: The pharmaceutical giant posted an after-tax profit of Rs819m for the quarter ended March 31, up from Rs697m a year ago. Earnings per share rose to Rs8.39 from Rs6.11. The board skipped the dividend.

Engro Fertilisers

The company’s after-tax profit fell 22pc to Rs1.66bn (or Rs1.29 per share) in the January-March quarter.

Sales declined 15pc to Rs10.07bn. Analyst Tahir Abbas at Arif Habib Ltd said the sales dropped mainly due to weaker off-take of urea and diammonium phosphate as they were down 7pc and 38pc year-on-year. Gross margins remained stagnant at 35pc.

Published in Dawn, April 25th, 2017