Date: October 16, 2018
Knutsford Express Services Limited (KEX), for the three months ended August 31, 2018 reported total revenue of $292.93 million, a 23.5% or $55.65 million increase when compared with the $237.28 million reported for the same period in 2017. KEX noted, “this was due to strong customer demand for passenger travel.”
Administrative and general expenses grew 16% for the quarter to total $204.01 million (2017: $175.81 million). This resulted in gross profits of $88.92 million for the quarter compared to the $61.47 million for the same period a year ago, a 44.7% increase.
Finance costs increased 29.1% to $6.55 million for the period from $5.07 million for 2017.
In addition, finance income rose from $178,009 in 2017 to $5.63 million in 2018. The company will be contacted for further insight on this huge increase.
As such Profit before taxation for the period amounted to $88 million, relative to $56.58 million reported in 2017, a 55.5% increase. No taxes were incurred this year as a result of Junior Market Tax holiday. Consequently, net profit also amounted to $88 million, representing a 55.5% increase over net profit after tax last year of $56.58 million.
Earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter amounted to $0.176 (2017: $0.113). The twelve-month trailing EPS amounted to $0.42. The number of shares used in our calculations is 500,000,015. Notably, KEX’s stock price closed the trading period on October 12, 2018 at a price of $12.00.
KEX added, “Our digitization efforts with increased use of our apps and online booking platform have made us more accessible as we strive to continue satisfying our customers. We were able to increase the seats in our reservation centre facilitating more passenger travel. Both channels have served to boost earnings and profits in the first quarter.”
Balance Sheet at a Glance:
As at August 31, 2018 assets totalled $834.41 million, $186.11 million more than the $648.30 million recorded last year. The increase in total assets was largely due to increases in ‘Property, plant and equipment’ and ‘Other Assets’ by $80.39 million and $53.53 million respectively to total $477.45 million and $94.61 million respectively.
Shareholder’s equity closed at $714.22 million (2017: $539.21 million). As such, the book value per share was $1.43 (2017: $1.08).
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