January-March 2023: Lucky Cement sees massive increase in profit

Lucky Cement’s profit-after-tax clocked in at Rs30.21 billion, an increase of over 222% during the first quarter (January-March) of 2023 when compared to Rs9.38 billion in the corresponding period last year.

The Board of Directors of the company in a meeting held on Friday reviewed the financial performance of the company for the period ended March 31, 2023. The BoD announced a nil dividend during the period.

Resultantly, the company’s Earnings per Share (EPS) jumped to Rs66.47 against Rs23.41 in the same period of the previous year.

New line operational, production commences: Lucky Cement

Lucky Cement’s net revenue increased by nearly 8% to Rs100.45 billion as compared to Rs93.19 billion recorded in the previous year. However, the cost of sales declined to Rs74.5 billion in the first quarter of 2023, as compared to Rs78.7 billion recorded in the previous year.

Resultantly, the gross profit of Lucky stood Rs25.93 billion in the 1Q23, as compared to Rs14.46 billion, an increase of over 79%.

Meanwhile, the company’s cost of finance jumped from Rs1.26 billion to Rs7.9 billion, a yearly increase of nearly 527%. The rise in interest rate can be attributed to the increase in the financial cost of the company.

However, the other income of Lucky Cement jumped over 62%, clocking in at Rs2.58 billion as compared to Rs975.8 million in same period last year.

On the other hand, the company witnessed a gain of Rs2.33 billion in share of profit from other ventures and Rs8.91 billion and Rs8.23 billion on partial disposal of NutriCo Morinaga Pvt Ltd, and remeasurement of interest retained in NutriCo Morinaga, respectively.

As a result, the company’s profit before taxation increased to Rs33.99 billion in 1Q23, as compared to Rs11.18 billion last year.

Lucky Cement has announced various projects over the fiscal year which includes the commencement of operations of Line-2, at Pezu Plant.

Lucky Cement completes installation of 34MW captive solar power plant

This addition increases the production capacity of Lucky’s cement production by 3.15 Million Tons Per Annum (MTPA), thereby, bringing the total capacity to 15.30 MTPA.

Moreover, the company also achieved the commencement of operations of a 34MW solar power project at Pezu Plant on December 29, 2022.