MaltaPost plc - Interim Results
On 12 May, MaltaPost plc published its interim results covering the six months ended 31 March 2015.
Performance Overview
During the period under review, the postal operator registered a 13.8% increase in revenue to €13.3 million largely reflecting the volume growth in international mail services, registered mail, as well as parcels and packets. The growth in revenue is also partly attributable to the impact of the revision of certain postal tariffs with effect from 1 January 2014 for the full six months under review. This contributed towards mitigating the adverse effect of the decreasing letter mail volumes.
Meanwhile, net operating expenses (comprising staff costs, operational expenses, depreciation and amortisation) only increased by 3.1% to €10.9 million as the increases in staff costs and depreciation were offset by one-off write-backs of certain operational expenses.
As a result, the Company reported a significant improvement in operating profits to €2.4 million compared to €1.1 million in the first half of the previous financial year. Excluding the depreciation and amortisation charge, MaltaPost’s EBITDA figure amounted to €2.8 million representing an 89.7% increase over the previous comparable period.
After accounting for net finance income which increased by 2.3% to €0.09 million, the Company’s pre-tax profit more than doubled to €2.5 million. Similarly, after deducting a tax charge of €0.88 million, MaltaPost posted a net profit for the first six months of the current financial year ending 30 September 2015 of €1.6 million compared to €0.81 million in the previous comparable period. This translates into an earnings per share of €0.0461 (HY2014: €0.0234).
The Statement of Financial Position shows a 10.9% growth in total assets since the end of the previous financial year on 30 September 2014 to €34.15 million which is largely attributable to the 38% increase in trade and other receivables to €9.5 million. Similarly, during the six months under review, total liabilities grew by 14.6% to €14.4 million reflecting the 15.5% increase in trade and other payables to €12.7 million. It is also noteworthy to highlight that MaltaPost remains debt free. Overall, the total equity of the Company grew by 8.4% to €19.7 million reflecting the profit registered during the period under review as well as the scrip dividend issue of January 2015. This translates into a net asset value per share of €0.5438 (Sept 2014: €0.5164).
Outlook
Looking ahead, the Directors noted that the Company will maintain its commitment to pursue growth opportunities in other key business and consumer areas (namely logistics related to e-commerce, document management and financial services) to offset the continuing decline in letter mail volumes. In this respect, the Company remains conscious of its role as the national Universal Service provider, with the onerous obligations it brings, and seeks to fulfil these in a commercially viable manner.
In the meantime, the Company’s strategy also entails re-aligning and streamlining its operations to contain costs.
The strategy of product diversification, enhancement of customer experience and cost containment is supported by the Company’s on-going investment in upgrading its branch network.
In conclusion the Directors explained that although these challenges will be met successfully, the positive trend in profitability during the first half of the current financial year is expected to taper off in the second six months due to a number of seasonal factors and the one-off write backs of previous accrued expenses. As such, the increase in profit for the period under review may not be entirely reproduced in the financial results for the full-year ending 30 September 2015.