KARACHI, April 29: The financial results announced on Monday by some of the major companies included the following:

Lucky Cement: The company announced profit- after-tax at Rs6.98bn for the mine months of fiscal year 2012, which translated into earning per share (eps) at Rs21.59.

It represented a growth of 48.97pc over earning per share at Rs14.50 in the same period of last year and stood higher than market consensus expectations.

Increase in sales volume by 9pc was attributed to an impressive 30pc growth in exports, coupled with reductions in input costs. The factors underlined earnings growth.

Topline of the company rose by 16pc to Rs27.7bn as against Rs23.9bn during the corresponding period last year (year-on-year).

Analyst Asad I. Siddiqui at Topline Securities stated that revenue per bag of the company increased by 14pc to Rs313 per bag as against Rs274 per bag.

Cost per bag on the other hand inched up by 3pc, which resulted in gross margins expansion by to 44pc.

Other income was realised at Rs196m during the latest period as against Rs3m year-on-year.

Lucky cement ascribed 61.30pc rise in Q3 earnings to Rs2.592bn, which helped realise profit-after-tax at Rs6.98bn in nine months of the fiscal year.

A press release by the company stated that the earnings per share for the period stood at Rs8.32 against eps at Rs5.16 of corresponding period last year.

The company’s gross profit increased by 40.31pc during the third quarter as its net sales revenue improved by 19.28pc to Rs10.2bn against Rs8.5bn of last year.

The local sales volume during the third quarter registered a decline of 1.6pc to 0.99 million tonnes as compared to 1.01 million tonnes compared to same quarter last year, whereas export sales grew 30pc.

The finance cost of the company for the period under review decreased by 61pc.

Lucky Cement reported installation of new packing machines at its Pezu facility, and the new vertical mills at its Karachi plant was commissioned.

Engro Corporation: The company announced first quarter 2013 profit-after-tax at Rs1.86bn (eps Rs3.50) as against loss of Rs649m (loss per share Rs1.3) in corresponding quarter of the earlier year.

The results were generally in-line with market expectations.

Engro Corporation’s overall revenues grew by 36pc to Rs31.3bn while cost of sales was up by 23pc.

As a result, the company posted healthier gross margins at 29pc.

A company press release stated that Engro’s fertiliser business continued to experience 86pc gas curtailment on the SNGPL network. However, the company’s production during the quarter rose mainly due to incremental efficiencies by diverting Mari gas to the ‘Enven’ plant. Higher production along with lower availability of competitive imported urea increased Engro Fertiliser’s urea sales to 298KT in the first quarter of 2013 from 77KT in the first quarter of 2012 and improved its market share to 23pc in first quarter of 2013 from 8pc in 2012.

Resultantly, Engro Fertiliser reported net profit of Rs646m during the period ended March 31, 2013 versus a loss of Rs1,420m during the same period last year.

Despite stable revenues, Engro Foods’ profitability was higher than first quarter of 2012 by 34pc due to lower costs of sales.

The business closed the quarter with a profit of Rs653m versus a profit of Rs486m in the corresponding period of 2012.

The company’s investments in the Halal Foods business in Canada, Al Safa, achieved sales revenue of Canadian dollars 2.2m during first quarter of 2013 as compared to Canadian dollars 2.5m in the same period of last year.

Fauji Fertiliser: For the first quarter 2013, the company posted earnings of R4.91bn (eps of Rs3.86), up 27pc over profit-after-tax at Rs3.88bn and eps at Rs3.05 in the same quarter the earlier year.

Along with the results, the company announced first interim cash dividend at Rs3.50 per share, which translated into payout of 91pc of earnings. The results were in line with market expectation.

Sales for first quarter 2013 amounted to Rs16.4bn, up 43pc over sales at Rs11.4bn year-on-year.

Analyst Naveed Tehsin at JS Global observed that in the first quarter 2013, the year-on-year growth in earnings was due to lower base of 2012, where off-take was held back in first quarter 2012 due to expectations of urea price reduction amid availability of imported urea, and secondly, weak farm economics. The first quarter 2013 net sales increase by 43pc year-on-year was primarily attributable to higher off-take of 565k tonnes (up 72pc year-on-year).

Nishat (Chunian): On a standalone basis, NCL posted profit-after-tax of Rs733m (eps Rs4.03) in the third quarter of fiscal year 2013 vs profit-after-tax at Rs251m (eps Rs1.41) in the third quarter of fiscal year 2012. The earnings were in-line with forecasts.

The top-line showed an impressive growth of 13.4pc on a sequential basis, clocking in at Rs5.61bn.

Gross profit margins improved significantly quarter on quarter to 17pc, following the recent gains in international cotton prices as well as rupee-dollar parity.

For nine months of fiscal year 2013, profit-after-tax was recorded at Rs1,723m (eps Rs9.47), translating into a substantial growth of 5.8 times year-on-year.

Bilal Alvi, investment analyst at AKD Securities, stated that the impressive top-line growth by NCL “underscores the impact of the Chinese cotton policy on NCL, resulting in lower sales risk and relative insulation from power crisis.”