KUALA LUMPUR: Berjaya Sports Toto Bhd’s (BToto) net profit for its third quarter of financial year ended Jan 31, 2015 (3QFY15) went up 43% to RM104.62 million from RM73.16 million in 3QFY14, mainly due to higher profit contribution from its United Kingdom luxury car distributor H R Owen plc.
In a filing with Bursa Malaysia yesterday, BToto’s revenue for 3QFY15 was up 8.2% to RM1.33 billion from RM1.23 billion in the same quarter a year ago, also due to higher contribution from H R Owen, which had recorded an increase in new car sales volume as a result of new model launches, and an increase in its aftersales segment revenue.
Its earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter was 7.78 sen compared with 5.49 sen in 3QFY14.
The group also declared a third interim dividend of five sen per share for the quarter (3QFY14: 9.5 sen per share) in respect of its FY15 ending April 30, which is payable on April 28.
For the nine-month FY15 ended Jan 31 (9MFY15), BToto’s net profit was up 11% to RM282.64 million from RM254.58 million a year ago, mainly due to a refund of an RM18 million stamp duty paid pursuant to the rescission of a share purchase agreement, which was a result of the aborted listing of Sports Toto Malaysia Trust on the Singapore Exchange Securities Trading Ltd.
Its 9MFY15 revenue rose 28.3% to RM3.83 billion from RM2.98 billion in 9MFY14, mainly due to the consolidation of H R Owen’s nine-month results in the current period versus three-month results consolidated in the previous year’s corresponding period.
BToto’s EPS for 9MFY15 was at 20.98 sen compared with its 9MFY14 EPS of 19.05 sen.
On prospects, BToto said with rising costs weighing down domestic consumer spending and the impending implementation of the goods and services tax from April 1, its directors are cautiously optimistic that the group will perform satisfactorily for the remaining quarter of the current financial year.
BToto (fundamental:1.3; valuation:0.9) shares closed up six sen or 1.82% at RM3.36 yesterday with a market capitalisation of RM4.48 billion.
This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily, on March 19, 2015.