Dipo Olowookere
By Dipo Olowookere
The first nine months of this year was not too good for Transcorp Plc, one of the leading conglomerates in Nigeria. On Tuesday, the company released its financial statements for the period ended September 30, 2019 and the numbers were not better than the same of last year.
An analysis done by Business Post showed that there were declines on both the top line and bottom line numbers.
In the period under review, the revenue generated by the firm went down to N58.3 billion from N79.9 billion, while the gross profit dropped to N27.0 billion from N37.0 billion.
This was despite the trimming of the cost of sales to N31.3 billion from N42.9 billion, with the administrative expenses cut down to N10.6 billion from N11.6 billion.
This was mainly because of reduction in the staff costs, management and incentive fees, rents and rates as well as advertising. Though, director’s remuneration, electricity and diesel cost, bank charges, provision for bad debts and others increased during the period being reviewed.
According to the results, the company generated N710.4 million as other income, better than the N542.1 million in the first nine months of last year, which came from dividend income on equity securities, while it made N17.1 billion as operating profit, lower than the N25.9 billion of the same time of 2018.
Transcorp further stated that its finance cost increased to N10.2 billion from N6.6 billion.
In the first nine months of this year, Transcorp declared a profit before tax of N7.4 billion versus N17.7 billion in the same time of last year, while the profit after tax dropped to N6.7 billion from N16.0 billion.
Recall that last week, the headquarters of Transcorp in Lagos was gutted by fire and the management assured its shareholders that no serious damage was done to the property, while no vital documents were destroyed.
