Aisha Steel Mills reports 26% increase in profit

Amounts to Rs1.28b for FY18, result in line with expectations

KARACHI: Driven by higher sales, Aisha Steel Mills reported a 26% higher profit of Rs1.28 billion for the year ended June 30, 2018, according to a notice sent to the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) on Wednesday.

Profit for the previous fiscal year stood at Rs1.02 billion.

However, basic earnings per share dropped to Rs1.57 in the year compared to Rs1.74 in the previous 12-month period due to issuance of right shares.

While its result was in line with market expectations, the company’s share price dropped 0.54%, or Rs0.09, to Rs16.61 with 3.44 million shares changing hands on a day the KSE-100 Index increased 0.23%.



Sales during the fiscal year stood at Rs18.90 billion, 34% higher than Rs14.07 billion in FY17. “Topline grew…mainly due to increase in CRC (ASL major product) prices,” Elixir Securities Analyst Sharoon Ahmad said in a note to his clients.

Gross profit grew 59% on a year-on-year basis, led by growth in topline and gross margins’ improvement. “The latter is attributable to improvement in realised CRC-HRC (raw material) spreads bolstered by protection from anti-dumping duties,” he said.

On the flip side, finance cost increased 14% to Rs1.07 billion compared to Rs948.64 million last year.

“Finance cost grew owing to exchange losses during the year,” analyst said.



Effective tax rate normalised to 33% during the year that also included the impact of 3% super tax, he said.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 2^nd, 2018.

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