By Adedapo Adesanya
Honeywell Flour Mills Plc has released its first quarterly report for the period ended June 30, 2019, and the figures showed that the company recorded a 6 percent profit after tax when compared with its Q1 2018. The PAT rose from N102 million to N108 million, while the profit before tax to N135 million from N127 million.
The company, despite the troubles caused by the Apapa gridlock in Lagos, managed to improve its revenue, which surged by 7 percent to N19.0 billion in Q1 2019 from N17.7 billion recorded in Q1 2018.
Cost of sales increased for the flour milling company as it expended N15.6 billion in three months on its listed factories in Apapa, Ikeja, and newly constructed factory in Sagamu, compared with N14.6 billion made between April and June 2018.
In the results, Honeywell cut down its selling and administrative expenses to N1.9 billion in Q1 2019 from N2.2 billion registered in the comparative period last year, while the operating profit for Q1 2019 went up to a total N1.5 billion, as against N1.0 billion recorded in Q1 2018.
Honeywell expended a finance cost of N1.4 billion compared with N892 million recorded in the first quarter of the previous year, representing a 57 percent increase in the period under review.
The company used a total net cash flow of N1.2 billion in investment activities, lower than N2.3 billion utilised in Q1 2018, while it made N4.3 billion net cash flow from its financing activities, more than N1.9 billion actualised in Q1 2018.
The company has a cash and equivalents totalling 12.7 billion naira in Q1 2019 compared to N8.9 billion recorded in the same period last year.