Investors of Nigeria-based British conglomerate, A.G Leventis Nigeria PLC, have their lucky stars to thank as the firm has announced a profit of N876 million for the 2018 financial year-ending, after recording losses for three consecutive years.
The losing streak, beginning in 2015 and ending in 2017, must have caused much panic among long-term investors, hoping all along that return on their investment would come their way someday.
The details of the company’s performance are contained in the Annual Report and Accounts of A.G Leventis published on the Nigeria Stock Exchange website on 1st July, 2019.
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Key Performance Indicators Improved: All major performance indices closed in the positive. Turnover increased marginally by 6.76% to N12.263 billion in 2018 from N11.488 billion recorded the year before.
Profit Before Tax went up to N620.548 million from Loss Before Tax of N3.86 billion that A.G Leventis recorded in 2017. However, it is worthy of note that A.G Leventis’s return to profitability rode largely on the back of the gain it earned from the disposal of its subsidiary, which yielded N1.428 billion for the company.
Profit for the year summed up to N876 million in 2018, a dramatic turnaround from an outrageous loss of N3.477 billion recorded in 2017.
The Board of Directors have decided that A.G Leventis Nigeria Plc will not pay dividend for the year.
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Why this matters: By all standards, the performance is a long-awaited relief to the company’s shareholders who obviously have been disappointed by the abysmal performance of A.G Leventis for three years.
Information gleaned from the company’s financials shows that the Earnings Per Share of A.G Leventis’s stocks is now 33k on every unit held by shareholders compared to the Loss Per Share of N1.27 on each unit in 2017.
Put differently, A.G Leventis made a gain of 33k on every unit of its shares in 2018 while it made a loss of N1.27 on each unit of share in 2018.
Altogether, the new development suggests that there is a high probability that investors’ confidence will be restored in the company as the year progresses. This means that there will be more activities and transactions on the company’s shares on the NSE.
The shares of A.G Leventis Nigeria currently trades on the floor of the NSE at N0.30 per share.
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Appropriate disclosure consolidates the integrity of financial reporting; the report ought to have disclosed gain on disposal of Subsidiary in sum of NGN 1,428,055,000.00 as exceptional item and allow Stakeholders to judge the performance of the company.
Please note that sum of NGN 1,848,326,000.00 as administrative expenses and NGN 897,742,000.00 as net finance cost would not allow a Company recording sales of NGN 12,263,625,000.00 to grow.
Investors are upgrading their status; let all Operators and Regulators respond accordingly.