ANSA McAL Group chairman and CEO A Norman Sabga, right, addresses shareholders at yesterday’s announcement (Thursday 13th August, 2015) of the company’s mid year financial results at Tatil Building, Maraval. At left is Group Corporate Secretary Frances Bain-Cumberbatch. PHOTO: NICOLE DRAYTON

For the first six months of 2015, the ANSA McAL Group achieved revenue of $2,871 million and profit before tax of $459 million—an 11 per cent improvement over the previous year.

Commenting on the groups’ unaudited results for the six months ended June 30, Group Chairman and Chief Executive, A Norman Sabga said: “I think these results speak for themselves. Our services companies performed significantly better than last year. We believe in the next two months the media company will pick up.

“In terms of the automotive sector, revenues are down but our percentage of the market has grown. That is how we measure an industry, the whole market is down but we increase our share. Our beverage industries in the islands have done well. Barbados is doing better than last year.”

Sabga, who spoke yesterday (Thursday 13th August, 2015) at a stockbrokers’ meeting at the Tatil Building, Maraval, described the financial results are a “mixed bag.”

“Overall, in the market that we find ourselves in, the results are not bad,” he said.

Commenting on the foreign exchange situation, Sabga said it is “scarce” and they are monitoring it.

“In the parent company our consolidated results show a little more costs because we did borrow US$20 million which we did to satisfy foreign exchange needs. It has not yet affected us but it continues to be scarce. It will hurt our reputation overseas if we cannot pay on time, so overall it is something that we are looking at very closely and it is something of concern. I do not think we are different and we mirror the situation in the country,” he said.

Sabga said the benefit of being a conglomerate is that when one of the sectors is down, others are growing.

“Over the last 15 years I have been the CEO and I have demonstrated that year on year,” he said.

He added that there are still many efficiencies in the group.

“We think of the glass being half full rather than half empty and we believe there are a lot of efficiencies to be had. We invested heavily in systems and I believe we underestimated the time it would take to settle and reap the benefits of huge investments in systems in the Group.

“In manufacturing we have bought state of the art equipment and there is a learning curve with that. We are better off than we were but there is a long way to go,” he said.

According to the unaudited results, earnings per share increased to $1.75 and the directors have approved an interim dividend of 0.30 cents per share.

Taken from: Trinidad Guardian
Story by: Rapheal John-Lall
Photo by: Nicole Drayton
Date: Friday 14th August, 2015
Page: A19, Business
http://www.guardian.co.tt/business/2015-08-14/ansa-group-half-year-profit-459m