Construction giant- Julius Berger Nigeria, recently presented its unaudited half-year figures shows improved management during the period with a return to half-year profit despite the marginal 4.8% rise in revenue, helped also by the ability to contain the rise in operating cost.
This thereby raised hope for dividend at year end, given the improvement in other gains and a robust investment income as a new line item; just as foreign exchange loss dropped by a significant 95.34%; despite also the 678.78% rise in finance costs.
Specifically, sales revenue for the period stood at N73.077bn, up from N69.728bn; cost of sales stood at N53.899bn from N52.051bn; resulting in gross profit of N17.177bn, 8.49% better than N17.676bn in 2017 half year.
Other gains increased from N1.889bn to N4.847bn, representing 156.6% rise; marketing expenses climbed 98.59% up from N17.563m to N34.878m; with administrative expenses limping from N16.348bn to N17.358bn. Operating profit improved by 107.32% to N6.632bn from N3.199bn; investment income stood at N645.694m; just as foreign exchange acquisition loss fell to N127.215m from N2.729bn; finance costs improved to N3.22bn from N413.566m.
This resulted in profit before tax of N3.929bn, representing a 6,945.17% improvement over the N55.782m reported in 2017; while profit after tax notched 811.22% to N2.594bn, as against the N364.729m loss; following the 217.69% growth in tax expenses which stood at N1.335bn from N420.511m. Earnings per share therefore stood at 0.04 kobo