Riyadh – Mubasher: Almarai Company on Sunday reported a marginal year-on-year increase in profits in the third quarter of 2017.

The food and beverage firm logged SAR 667 million ($177.82 million) in profits between July and September, up 0.41% from SAR 664.3 million ($177.10 million) in the year-ago period, according to a filing to the Saudi Stock Exchange (Tadawul).

Quarter-on-quarter, profits declined by 1.05% from SAR 674.1 million.

Meanwhile, gross profit amounted to SAR 1.516 billion in Q3-17, up 2.06% from 1.485 billion in the same period of 2016.

Almarai attributed the results to lower cost of sales despite higher alfalfa costs, owing to better cost management, lower commodity costs, and enhanced production efficiencies, which resulted in improved gross profit.

“Selling and distribution expenses and general and administration expenses were lower than last year by SAR 40.0 million driven by cost control and operational efficiencies,” Almarai revealed, noting that other expenses rose year-on-year to SAR 47.2 million in Q3-17 on lower selling price of bull calves and greater number of cows and heifers sold compared to last year.

“Other expenses for last year included a one-off insurance claim proceed of SAR 25.0 million,” the statement indicated, noting that a decline in exchange gain of SAR 23.4 million “is resulting from last year exchange realised gain mainly on Euro which is not repeated this year,” Almarai noted.

Almarai’s bakery segment’s profit fell 27.5% year-on-year as volume growth stalled, the statement showed.

As for the first nine months of 2017, Almarai posted a 3.61% year-on-year rise in profits to SAR 1.669 billion, compared to SAR 1.611 billion.

Gross profits for the period between January and September amounted to SAR 4.248 billion, up 2.77% from SAR 4.134 billion in the year-ago period.

Earnings per share (EPS) amounted to SAR 2.02 in the first nine months of the year against SAR 1.96, a year ago.

As for the reason behind the rise in nine-month profits, Almarai reported similar reasons for the period, citing lower selling and distribution expenses and general and administrative expenses by SAR 93.5 million on the back of cost control and operating efficiency.