Aug 2007 Financial News

BST Releases Nine Months Results

Aug 10, 2007

Results for the Nine Months Ended June 30, 2007
All figures quoted in Barbados Dollars unless otherwise stated

For The Nine Months Ended June 30, 2007, Barbados Shipping & Trading Company Limited (BST) reported Earnings Per Share (EPS) of 39.5 cents. This figure was up by 16.18 per cent or 6 cents on the corresponding period in FY06.

Revenue for the Nine Month period stood at $595.38 million, up 7.32 per cent or $40.60 million on the comparable figure for FY06. Operating Profit before Interest Expense totalled $41.94 million and was up by a significant 21.59 per cent or $7.45 million on the Nine Month period in FY06. Interest Expense however, increased by a larger margin of 24.04 per cent or $2.14 million to $11.04 million. As such, Profit Before Associates and Taxation amounted to $30.90 million, a considerable increase of 20.73 per cent or $5.31 million on the same period in FY06.

NM07 on NM06, Share of Income after tax from Associated Companies grew a substantial 50.88 per cent from $5.31 million (NM06) to $8.02 million (NM07). Thus, Profit Before Taxation ended the nine month period at $38.91 million, an outstanding increase of 25.92 per cent or $8.01 million.

The Effective Tax Rate for the period under review was 15.60 per cent compared to a Tax Rate of 11.51 per cent for NM06. As a result, Profit After Taxation ended the nine month period at $32.84 million, up 20.09 per cent or $5.49 million when compared to the same period in FY06.

Minority Interest for NM07 stood at $3.19 million, up by 14.05 per cent from $2.80 million in NM06. Thus, Profit Attributable to Shareholders was $29.65 million, a considerable increase of 20.63 per cent or $5.07 million.

The Directors expect that the results for the final quarter will continue to reflect reasonable growth over the comparable period last year.

BST’s shares are currently trading at a price of TT$20.57 on the local market. At the current price and our forecasted EPS of TT$1.65 (BBD0.53) for FY07, this share is trading at a P/E multiple of 12.47 times. Currently there are two Take-Over Bids for this Company; one by Ansa McAl Holdings Limited (AMCL) and the other by Neal and Massy Holdings Limited (NML). At this time, we therefore recommend a HOLD on this share.


Nancy Chen
WISE Equity Research Team