Lucky Cement earnings rise 12.5% to Rs4.69b

Sales volume outperformed growth in industry sales by 7%

KARACHI: Lucky Cement Limited - one of the largest cement producers in Pakistan - has announced a consolidated profit of Rs4.69 billion in the second quarter ended December 31, 2016, up 12.5% compared with Rs4.17 billion in the same period of previous year, according to a company notice sent to the Pakistan Stock Exchange on Thursday.

Earnings per share (EPS) increased to Rs13.43 in Oct-Dec 2016 from Rs11.97 in the same period a year ago.

Lucky Cement share price increased by 0.01% on Thursday, closing at Rs889.18. KSE-100 index closed at 50,192.36, up 435 points or 0.88%.



Consolidated earnings for the first half (Jul-Dec) rose to Rs8.74 billion, up 14.2% compared with Rs7.65 billion in the corresponding period of previous year.

Sales volume remained buoyant, outperforming industry sales growth by 7%, courtesy higher domestic demand, which was up 22% year-on-year.

Exports also showed some improvement, increasing 9% quarter-on-quarter, but were down 3% year-on-year.

Gross margins of the company stood at 49% in the second quarter of fiscal year 2016-17, recording a dip of 160 basis points quarter-on-quarter owing to higher commodity prices.

Interestingly, other expenses showed a massive surge of 79% quarter-on-quarter, according to a JS Research report.



The company also updated investors about the progress on its various projects under development. The commissioning of 10-megawatt waste heat recovery (WHR) plant at the Pezu unit has been delayed from December 2016 to January 2017. It is currently in the testing phase.

Apart from this, the financial close of a 660MW coal-fired power project has also been delayed from March to May 2017.

On a positive note, the company announced the commencement of its DR Congo cement plant since December 2016.