By Adedapo Adesanya
Nigeria’s top construction entity, Julius Berger, has released its consolidated unaudited statement for half year (H1) of 2019 and analysis by Business Post Nigeria indicated that the company recorded a higher profit than it did in the first half of 2018.
The construction company said it made a profit after tax of N2.8 billion, higher than N2.6 billion it declared in H1 2018, representing a 7.7 percent increase.
In the numbers released by the firm, the sum of N1.7 billion was paid as income tax compared with N1.3 billion paid in the same period of last year.
The profit before tax, according to the financial statements, was N4.6 billion in contrast to N3.9 billion.
In H1 2019, Julius Berger generated N131.8 billion in revenue, more than N73.1 billion in H1 2018, indicating a growth of 80.3 percent within 12 months, while the cost of sales gulped N101.9 billion, higher than N53.9 billion in the first six months of 2018.
This had huge impact on the company’s gross profit as it significantly reduced what the organisation would have made as gross profit. However, it was still higher than what was achieved in H1 2018, N19.2 billion, compared with in H1 2019, N29.9 billion.
Other gains of the company which were acquired through the sale of properties, plants, and equipment and foreign exchange, however saw a decline by a wide margin of over N4.7 billion to N98.8 million in 2019 half year against N4.9 billion in 2018 HY.
In the statements, the firm said its marketing costs went up to N81 million in the period under review from N34 million, while the administrative expenses looked northwards N22.5 billion from N17.4 billion.
The finance costs also increased in H1 2019 to N3.9 billion from N3.2 billion, showing that the company expended more to service its debts like loans and overdraft within the 12-month period.
Dipo Olowookere