After several seasons of unpalatable news, the management of Oando Plc, on Friday gave shareholders reasons to cheer, with its unaudited half year result indicating a return to profit, helped by a significant N150.741bn or 129.68% growth in revenue, which more than compensated for the equally high increase in cost of sales.
Revenue stood at N266.977bn from N116.236bn; while cost of sales soared to N233.544bn, representing an increase of N122.337bn or 110%, which left a gross profit of N33.433bn, compared with a mere N5.028bn in the corresponding half year of 2016.
Other operating income remained flat at N12.662bn from N12.635bn; administrative expenses dropped to N31.506bn from N49.419bn, resulting in operating profit of N14.59bn as against the loss of N31.755bn.
Finance costs for the period stood at N12BN, a decline from the previous N37.999bn; just as finance income jumped to N4.632bn from N2.655bn, following which net finance costs dropped to N16.367bn, compared to the previous N35.344bn.
Profit after tax amounted to N4.561bn, a significant improvement over the preceding half year’s loss of N26.991bn, representing a seven kobo earnings per share, from a loss of 226 kobo.
A segment by segment breakdown of Oando Plc’s earnings showed that supply and trading business remains its honey-pot, accounting for N217.244bn, followed by N49.699bn from exploration and production, which incidentally accounted for the bulk N25.343bn of operating profit and N8.191bn finance cost.
Exploration and production also recorded N18.514bn net profit for the period.