Okomu Oil Palm Plc has released its performance score card for the nine-month ended September 30, 2018, showing that profit grew at a marginally faster rate than sales revenue, helped by the drop in cost of sales.
Further look at the figure shows that much of the cost management occurred within the three-month ended September, when cost of sales fell by 57.69% from N1.19bn in 2017 to N504.055m, at a time turnover dropped to N3.745bn from N4.111bn.
This helped to drop cost of sales for the nine-month period from N2.478bn to N2.301bn, as turnover rose marginally to N16.684bn, from N16.585bn in the corresponding period of 2017, following which gross profit stood at N14.382bn, improving from the previous N14.107bn.
Net operating expenses however rose to N5.637bn from N4.88bn; leaving profit from continuing operations before tax changes in fair value at N8.745bn, down from the prior N9.227bn.
Finance income slipped to N307.622m from N381.95m; while finance cost also fell, from N436.537m to N332.202m; as profit on continuing operation before tax slipped from N9.172bn to N8.72bn. Tax expenses for the period fell from N2.778bn to N1.477bn, representing a N1.3bn, or 46.81%; resulting in after tax profit of N7.243bn, up by N849.154m or 13.28% from N6.394bn in 2017, translating to Earnings Per Share of N7.59, as against the previous N6.70 each.