Julius Berger Nigeria Limited, the country’s largest listed construction firm, managed to grow its net income for the full year 2014 period even as the slump in oil prices meant construction activities slowed in the last half of the year.
The company managed to report higher net earnings despite lower revenues and higher expenses.
The firm reported that profit after tax grew by 4.92 percent to N8.24bn in FY 2014, from N7.85bn in FY 2013.
The firms earnings per share (EPS) also increased by 0.3 percent to N6.13 kobo in FY 2014, from N6.11 kobo in FY 2013.
Revenue for the period however declined 7.49 percent to N196.8bn from N212.7 billion, while finance costs soared by 55.09 percent.
“Julius Berger…enjoys a large chunk of the construction contracts of the Federal Government and even though there are possibilities of a slowdown in awarding new contracts, we expect the company to record moderate performance in Q1 2015,” said analysts at GTI Securities Limited in a March 25 note.
Nigeria is cutting capital expenditure on everything from roads, rail and bridges as global oil prices fell to about $54 a barrel about half what they were in June of last year.
The country’s depends on oil revenues to fund up to 70 percent of the Federal budget.
Standard and Poor’s ratings agency downgraded Nigeria to B+ from BB- last week, while the naira has fallen 20 percent since being devalued in November.
Julius Berger declared a final dividend of N2.70 kobo per share, equivalent to a dividend yield of 6 percent at current market prices (March 25).
PATRICK ATUANYA
