Date: September 10, 2019
The Limner and Bards Limited (LAB), for the nine months ended July 31, 2019, reported a 24% increase revenues to $486.28 million versus $391.28 million booked in 2018. Revenues for the quarter rose by 16% to $151.80 million (2018: $130.64 million). Management noted, “The revenue growth is attributable to increases in the company’s core business, production (up $69.6 million or 113%) and media (up $30.2 million or 15%). These increases were to some extent offset by reduction and non – recurrence of some non – core activities during the period.”
Cost of operating revenue rose by 20% for the period to $313.31 million (2018: $260.51 million). Consequently, gross profit for the period rose by 32% closing at $172.96 million compared to $130.77 million for the same period last year. For the quarter, gross profit increased 56% to $48.06 million (2018: $30.76 million).
The Company reported a 42% increase in administration expenses to $80.89 million (2018: $57.15 million). For the quarter, the Company reported a 70% increase in administrative expenses which closed the quarter at $30.35 million (2018: $17.82 million). The company noted, “These increases are primarily attributable to staff costs (due to increase work volume), subcontractors (on retainer contracts), depreciation charges and security costs.”
Notably, the company booked no ‘Loss on disposal of Property, Plant and Equipment’ relative to a loss of $1.45 million in 2018. Consequently, profit before net finance and taxation rose by 28% to $92.08 million (2018: $72.17 million).
Net finance costs went up to $3.44 million compared to net finance cost of $963,350 for the same period in the prior year.
Profit before taxation amounted to $88.64 million (2018: $71.21 million). Taxation booked $18.82 million for the period (2018: $11.70 million), as such net profit for the nine months grew by 17% to $69.81 million (2018: $59.51 million). Net profit for the quarter was reported at $12.70 million compared to $6.55 million booked in the corresponding quarter of 2018.
Earnings per share (EPS) for the nine months amounted to $0.074 compared to $0.063 in 2018, while for the quarter EPS amounted to $0.013 versus $0.007 documented in the prior comparable quarter. The twelve months trailing EPS amounted to $0.077. The number of shares used in our calculations is 945,690,252 units. Notably, LAB’s stock price closed the trading period on September 9, 2019 at a price of $3.02.
Balance Sheet Highlights:
As at July 31, 2019, the Company reported total assets of $519.60 million, a 121% rise when compared to $235.40 million a year ago. This was as a result of ‘Accounts receivable’ and ‘Cash and cash equivalents’ which closed at $181.24 million (2018:$54.45 million ) and $236.56 million (2018: $63.71 million), respectively. This was however tempered by a downward movement in ‘Due from related parties’ which amounted to $11.45 million (2018: $21.38 million).
Shareholders’ Equity as at July 31, 2019 was $331.56 million compared to $120.02 million a year ago. This resulted in a book value per share of $0.35 compared to $0.13 in 2018.
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