The South African industrial gas supplier reported an increase in its half-year profit on Monday.
African Oxygen (Afrox) has reported a 10 percent increase in its half-year profit, boosted by volume growth from its liquefied petroleum gas, healthcare and bulk industrial gases products.
This continues on the positive trend announced in their annual results in February this year. At the time, CFO Matthias Vogt credited their positive results to the company’s Swift programme. It is clear that the programme, which was implemented in 2015 as a turnaround strategy and later used as a broad-based management strategy, is still delivering results.
The gas company’s productivity shows in their latest results for the six months ended 30 June:
• Diluted headline earnings per share (HEPS) rose to 102.8 cents per share, from 93.3 cents a year earlier.
• Their atmospheric gases division’s revenue rose 2.7 percent to R1.162 billion.
• Their liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) revenue rose 10.6 percent to R1.047 billion.
Due to reduced business activity in the South African mining sector and slowdown in the manufacturing industry weighing down their financial results, the hard goods business (non-gas products) revenue fell 3.2 percent to R330 million.
However, Afrox still declared an interim dividend of 52 cents per share, compared with 46 cents per share for the previous year.
