Total Kenya swings to profit, triples dividend payout
A Total Kenya petrol station. The oil marketer has recorded a Sh1.3 billion net profit for 2013, reversing a Sh202 million loss recorded a year earlier. Photo/FILE
What you need to know:
Total’s strong performance was aided by a sharp drop in finance costs, increased sales and lower expenses in the review period.
Total Kenya returned to profitability in the year ended December 2013 with a Sh1.3 billion net profit, reversing a Sh202 million loss recorded a year earlier.
The performance saw the oil marketer triple its dividend payout to Sh0.60 per share as it projected a good performance this year.
Total’s strong performance was aided by a sharp drop in finance costs, increased sales and lower expenses in the period under review.
Its gross sales rose 29.1 per cent to Sh154.6 billion as the firm’s cost of sales increased by a third to Sh135.3 billion.
Its operating expenses, however, dropped seven per cent to Sh4.3 billion helping to improve its margins.
But Total made the biggest gain by saving Sh1.2 billion in finance costs, an outcome achieved by its parent firm Total Outre-Mer’s injection of Sh5.2 billion capital in 2012 to retire the oil marketer’s expensive short-term borrowings.
The French multinational paid Sh15.71 for each of the 330.9 million preference shares it was allotted in the company for its cash contribution. The transaction significantly diluted minority shareholders’ stake, with the parent firm raising its stake to 93.96 per cent from the previous 87.27 per cent.
Analysts at Standard Investment Bank (SIB) expected Total Kenya to declare a dividend of Sh0.85 and observed that the lower dividend could be due to a cash build-up for paying down part of the preferreds.
Total’s stock has gained 26.3 per cent over the past six months to trade at Sh23.
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