Results round-up
Africa-focused cold chain foods and retail business Zambeef issued its unaudited interim results for the six months ended 31 March on Wednesday, reporting revenue of $123.85m, up from $118.38m year-on-year.
The AIM-traded firm said gross profit rose to $46.58m from $38.49m, with operating profit rising to $6.3m from $4.5m.
Its profit before tax was $2.76m, compared to $0.59m a year ago, while profit after tax more than doubled to $1.18m from $0.53m.
EBITDA for the period stood at $11.11m, compared to $8.9m last year, with the company's EBITDA margin improving to 8.97% from 7.51%.
Its operating profit margin was 5.08%, compared to 3.8% at the same time last year.
"The volatile economic conditions in Zambia over the previous two years, including sharp depreciation of the Kwacha against the US Dollar and relatively high inflation, presented challenges for the business," said chairman Dr Jacob Mwanza
"I am pleased to say that this period of uncertainty appears to be behind us.
"We are entering a period of relative stability in the economy, supported by tight fiscal and monetary control by Zambia's Ministry of Finance and the Bank of Zambia."
Dr Mwanza said volume and margin growth in the company’s retail and cold chain food products division and stockfeed division indicated that the worst of the economic hardship had dissipated.
"The group will maintain its focus on expanding the retailing and distribution footprint and on improving margins and increasing profitability.
"We will continue to expand the cold chain food production capacity to meet increasing consumer demand; complete the build out of the new stock feed plant at Mpongwe and continue to strengthen our balance sheet, through the disposal of non-core assets."
Home shopping and education supplies group Findel announced on Wednesday that it swung to a profit in the 12 months leading up to 30 March, after a strong showing from its Express Gifts business.
The company reported a profit before tax of £22.1m for the period, compared to a loss of £59.4m in the previous year, thanks to a 4.8% increase in revenues to £479m powered by a 9.6% rise in Express Gifts sales on a like-for-like basis, to £285.1m.
Despite that, at period end the group's debt load stood at £232.3m, up 3.3% on the previous year.
Phil Maudsley, group chief executive, said: "This has been a year of good sales growth and improved profitability through our focus on delivering great-value products to our customers across all channels. The year has also seen significant progress against our strategic objectives and both businesses continue to transform their digital sales offering."
The group’s education division recorded a revenue fall of 6.7% to £85.6m after the business transitioned to a more online oriented sales strategy under its Studio brand.
"I am delighted to report that we have more customers shopping with Studio than ever before, that our Education business has seen a transformational shift in the last year towards online ordering, and that our improved results for FY18 were delivered without adjustment for individually significant items," said Maudsley.
The company said online ordering in the education market has been much slower to emerge than in others, but it saw online orders rise from approximately 19% of all education orders to roughly 50% in a trend that Findel expects to continue.