February 14, 2020

Eppley Limited for the year ended December 31, 2019 reported interest income of $370.89 million a 16% or $51.70 million increase when compared $319.19 million recorded for the corresponding period in 2018. Total interest income for the quarter amounted to $101.37 million a 20% increase when compared to the $84.77 million recorded for the same quarter in 2018.

Interest expenses for the period amounted to $197 million, a 16% increase when compared to $170.15 million recorded for the prior year.

Consequently, net interest income for the financial year rose 17% to total $173.88 million up from the $149.03 million recorded in the corresponding period of 2018. Net interest income for the fourth quarter amounted to $51.06 million relative to $42.20 million in 2018.

Other operating income for the period soared by 60% to total $150.38 million relative to $93.93 million booked for 2018.

Administrative expenses rose 27% for the year to close at $174.53 million up from $137.94 million recorded in the previous year.

Eppley recorded a total of $10.55 million for share of net profit from joint venture accounted for using the equity method for the period relative to the $17.16 million recorded for the corresponding period in FY2018.

There was no net impairment losses of financial and contracts assets reported versus $922,000 documented in the prior comparable year.

As such, pre-tax profit closed at $160.29 million for the year ended December 31, 2019, 32% more than the $121.26 million booked in 2018.  Taxation of $2.60 million (2018: $776,000) was incurred for the period resulting in a net profit attributable to shareholders of $157.69 million, a 31% increase from the $120.48 million recorded for the same period in 2018. Net profit for the quarter amounted to $48.17 million, a 21% uptick when compared with the $39.82 million recorded for the last quarter in 2018.

Earnings per share for the quarter amounted to $0.25 (2018: $0.21). Earnings per share for the year ended December 31, 2019 totalled $0.82 compared to $0.63 for the corresponding period in 2018. The total amount of shares outstanding used for this calculation was 192,468,300 units. Notably, the stock price for EPLY closed the trading period on February 13, 2020 at JMD$13.50.

The company highlighted that, “the net interest income on our proprietary investments and the management fees from our funds both increased significantly so far this year highlighting the continued improvement in the quality of our underlying business.”

In addition, Eppley noted that, “At the end of the quarter we owned a $3.8 billion investment portfolio consisting of loans, leases, receivables and investments in our real estate and asset management joint ventures and subsidiaries. The average income yield of our portfolio was 13%. Our capital-at-risk was less than 1% of capital. We also managed the equivalent of US$70 million of committed capital for investors through the Caribbean Mezzanine Fund and the Eppley Caribbean Property Fund.”

Balance Sheet Highlights:

As at December 31, 2019, total assets amounted to $3.83 billion, relative to the $3.29 billion recorded a year ago. The increase in assets was driven primarily by increases in ‘Loans receivables’ by to close at $1.53 billion (2018: $1.47 billion) and ‘Financial Assets at fair value through profit’ amounting to $879.20 million from $363.76 million in 2018.

Shareholder’s Equity as at December 31, 2019 totalled $859.58 million (2018: $774.88 million) resulting in a book value per share of approximately $4.47 relative to $4.03 in 2018.

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