Oct 2016 Financial News

TCL's revenue down by 12 per cent

Oct 31, 2016

For the nine months ended September 30, Trinidad Cement Limited’s (TCL) overall revenue totalled $1.43 billion, a decline of 12.2 per cent compared with the corresponding period in 2015.

Chairman Wilfred Espinet and director Nigel Edwards, in a report to shareholders that accompanied the latest interim financial report from the cement company, said this took place against a backdrop of “challenging markets and significant maintenance by the Group.”

They said: “The revenue decline has been largely caused by the precipitous fall in construction activity in Trinidad and Tobago where the group has faced a decline in sales across all business segments. Weak demand also impacted some of the countries in our Caribbean market, but was offset by the positive performance in Jamaica despite the discontinuation of clinker exports to Venezuela.” 

TCL after-tax profits for the first nine months of the year plummeted by 86.4 per cent to $56.9 million compared with $471.3 million in 2015.

The TCL Group incurred capital expenditure and maintenance costs of $44.6 million on its plants to conduct overhauls during the quarter. Extensive work on the plants in Jamaica and T&T resulted in scheduled plant maintenance shutdowns of eight weeks and seven weeks respectively.

In addition to the focus on the physical plants to generate more efficiencies, the group continued other restructuring efforts aimed at enhancing overall competitiveness. As a result, the results have been affected by severance costs of $4.8 million.

The net cash generated by operating activities increased 32 per cent from $83.3 million in 2015 to $110 million. This was the result primarily of targeted focus on working capital management. 

“We expect that construction activity will remain challenging for the group particularly in Trinidad and Tobago and Barbados; in addition, we are seeing increasingly aggressive competition in the region.”

Source:
Trinidad Guardian
Saturday October 29, 2016

http://www.guardian.co.tt/business/2016-10-28/tcl%E2%80%99s-revenue-down-12-cent