Nishat Chunian Power Limited (PSX: NCPL) - a Nishat Group IPP - announced its financial performance of FY16 on the stock exchange yesterday, posting a decline in earnings of around 11 percent for the year, along with a final cash dividend of Rs1.5 per share (in addition to Rs5.75 interim dividend).
Compared to the recent earnings decline, the IPPs had a stable growth of over six percent year-on-year in its earnings back in FY15, where operational factors remained they key earning boosters for NCPL. The cost of sales also remained weaker in FY15, declining by 23 percent year-on-year due to lower operation and maintenance cost.
However, a key issue that the firm faced in FY16 as well as in FY15 was the receding top line. In FY15, firms revenues took a dip of over 18 percent year-on-year due to retreating crude oil prices; FY15 was marked with severe thrashing of crude oil prices that fell sharply by around 33 percent that resulted in declining revenues for the IPPs due to lower furnace oil prices and fuel savings. This trend continued in FY16 where the top line came down by almost 39 percent year-on-year. Apart from lower revenues, NCPL witnessed a growth of around 27 percent in FY16 administrative costs. On the other hand, finance cost came down drastically due to reduced working capital needs on account of reduced receivables from NTDCL coupled with lower inventory financing.
NCPL will continue to benefit from O&M savings as O&M services now being taken care of in-house since 4QFY15. However, on the long term investment front, the IPP had to face a setback recently when it abandoned the development of a 660 megawatts coal-based power plant in Punjab province mainly due to logistics issues.
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