Engro Fertilizer profit grows

KARACHI: Engro Fertilizers’ net profit grew 20.15 percent on a year-on-year basis, chiefly drawing strength from strong gross margins, analysts said on Thursday.

“… the uptick in the profitability can be attributed to notable improvement in gross margins on the back of better retention prices, fall in selling expenses, and reduced finance costs,” analysts at Taurus Securities said in a report.

The company, in a notice sent to Pakistan Stock Exchange, said it netted Rs11.15 billion for the year ended December 31, 2017 compared to Rs9.28 billion recorded in the previous year.

“The earnings per share for 2017 clocked in at Rs8.36 as against Rs6.98 in 2016, while company also declared a final cash dividend of Rs3/share, in addition to an interim dividend of Rs5.5/share already paid to shareholders,” a bourse filing said.

Engro added that its sales revenues in 2017 surged 10.9 percent to Rs77.12 billion compared with revenues of Rs69.53 billion in 2016.

“Revenues jumped amid 12 percent higher urea off-take along with backing from urea exports,” Tahir Abbas at Arif Habib Limited said.

According to the notice, Engro Fertilizers’ other income eroded 28 percent to Rs5.86 billion in 2017 compared to Rs8.143 billion in 2016. “On the other hand, finance cost in 2017 also declined 16.9 percent to Rs2.64 billion compared to Rs3.18 billion in 2016,” the filing said.