Elsewedy Electric (SWDY.CA) reported financial results posting a net profit of EGP 145.9 million for the period from 01/01/2012 till 31/12/2012. Noting that, it posted net profits of EGP 536.5 million for the previous year. Also Elsewedy Electric the leading Wire & Cable and Integrated Energy Solution Provider in the Middle East and Africa, announced its consolidated financial results for the full year ended December 31st, 2012. Q4 2012 versus Q4 2011 - Consolidated Revenues in Q4 2012 increased by 7% to reach EGP 4.1 billion versus EGP 3.8 billion in Q4 2011. - Gross Profit in Q4 2012 increased by 29% to reach EGP 473 million versus EGP 366 million in Q4 2011. - EBITDA in Q4 2012 decreased by 1% to reach EGP 205 million versus EGP 207 million in Q4 2011. - Net Loss after Minority reached EGP (- 49) million during Q4 2012 versus EGP (-19) million during Q4 2011. FY 2012 versus FY 2011 - Consolidated Revenues decreased by 4% to reach EGP 14.5 billion for FY 2012, versus EGP 15.2 billion in FY 2011. - Gross Profit decreased by 4% to reach EGP 1,840 million during FY 2012, versus EGP 1,911 million in FY 2011. - EBITDA decreased by 22% to reach EGP 1,074 million in FY 2012, versus EGP 1,385 million in FY 2011. - Net Profit after Minority Interest reached EGP 117 million in FY 2012 versus EGP 509 million for FY 2011. Commenting on the FY 2012 results, Ahmed El Sewedy C.E.O. of Elsewedy Electric stated: “I would consider 2012 to be one of the most challenging years in the history of the Company. The impact of the revolutions in Egypt, Syria, and Libya was felt in 2012 as during 2011 we were basically operating on the pre-revolution backlog. Our main segment, which continues to be Wire and Cables performed reasonably well on a Gross profit level in 2012. Algeria is performing extremely well and we continued to also see positive performance in Saudi Arabia. The Saudi government are committed to triple the installed capacity and have recently issued a tender for 250,000 tons of cables which is the largest tender issued in many years estimated to be in the range of SAR 15-20 billion. It was a difficult year for the Turnkey, however we have opened up new markets such as Malawi, Liberia, South Sudan, Congo DRC and Chad, amongst others, which we expect to materialize into contracts. We also were awarded a power generation EPC contract in Iraq for a 500MW project. We currently have contracts in Iraq in the range of US$250M. As for the meters we spent the last few years investing in R&D to develop new products and software applications including a new industrial meter. This segment performed well in 2012 and we expect continued strong performance in this segment during 2013. Another important market for us is Libya which in 2012 we saw very little demand however we believe it will pickup in 2013. We were able to send the second shipment of wind turbines to Libya during the fourth quarter of 2012. We made a lot of tough decisions in 2012 which we are confident will pay off in 2013, mainly a number of changes in the management of some of the key operations. In addition we converted a portion of the debt in Egypt, which was in foreign currency to EGP debt to match the revenues in local currency. Whilst devaluation is positive for Elsewedy Electric we preferred to manage our currency exposure proactively thus reducing the impact of any devaluation of the currency in the form of foreign exchange losses. We are more optimistic on 2013, even taking into account the fact that demand in Egypt may not pick up in 2013. We have a strong backlog, which gives us good visibility on 2013".
