Egytrans, a leading transport and logistics company, announced on September 13th its first half consolidated results. Growth in revenues was coupled with a considerable improvement on Cost/Revenues ratio by 1,162 bps to record 53.5% in 1H17 vis-à-vis 65.2% in 1H16, leading to a higher EBITDA margin of 39.7% versus. 19.3% for both respective halves. Egytrans has made record revenues of 227 million Egyptian pounds up 152% Y-o-Y, while diligently curbing costs has resulted in a triple bang effect. "Overall, during the past six months we were able to grow our top line, reduce our costs and keep a hefty net profit, our shareholders signaled their enthusiasm and our share price outperformed the market. I would like to thank our team for doing an excellent job for our shareholders," said Egytrans Chairman, Abir Leheta. "Mega Power projects continue to be the main driver for Egytrans' huge growth in revenues during the first six months of 2017, fueling growth in various lines of business such as land transport, storage and other handling services. On the macroeconomic front 2Q17 has shown some stability in the currency market in terms of exchange rate and availability of USD in banks which positively affected the import/export market and local trade despite the lower purchasing power due to inflation. Moreover, the VAT executive regulations were announced during the second quarter which led to some balance in the trade market. EGYTRANS signed a new contract during 2Q17 through which it will handle the transportation of 2 transformers of 150 tons each to El Mostasmerin power plant. The Company looks forward to fulfilling this contract. Revenues jumped 152.4% Y-o-Y to record 227.2 million Egyptian pounds driven by the continued work in mega projects which extended to 1H17 as well as the improved performance of ETAL and the continued boost in regular business volumes. Meanwhile, mega projects operations have continued in the first half of 2017, strongly reflected on operational and financial growth, albeit no new mega projects were introduced. Moreover, Revenues have set a new quarterly record for the Company, positioning Egytrans as the leading Transportation and Logistics Company in Egypt. Growth in revenues was coupled with a considerable improvement on Cost/Revenues ratio by 1,162 bps to record 53.5% in 1H17 vis-à-vis 65.2% in 1H16, leading to a higher EBITDA margin of 39.7% versus. 19.3% for both respective halves. In 1H17, provisions remained at 9 million pounds (had been booked in 1Q17) with the primary aim of covering employees' end of service program for 2017-2018 and transferring Egytrans tax file from Shareholding Companies' Taxes Commission to Large Tax-Payer Tax Center. Net Profits after Taxes for the current half came in at 61.6 million pounds (almost 3x higher than 1H16 of 21.2 million pounds) with a margin of 27.1% vis-a-vis a margin of 23.6% in 1H16 despite the higher taxes during the half, which recorded 23.1 million pounds versus 3.9 million pounds in 1H16. On a different note, the increase in operations has led Accounts Receivable and Accounts Payable to surge by 72.7% and 40.4%, respectively. Egytrans' separate revenues reached 184.6 million pounds (153.2% growth Y-o-Y), while Costs increased 112.7% to 114.5 million pounds. In the meantime, SG&A increased by 10.0% to 12.8 million pounds. Accordingly, EBITDA margin has strongly improved to 57.3 million pounds from 7.5 million pounds for 1H17 versus. 1H16, respectively. Net Profits after Taxes added 230.4% to reach 53.1 million pounds in 1H17 vis-à-vis 16.1 million pounds in the year-ago period.
