By: Eman Ghaly
Mubasher: The financial statements of the transportation companies listed on the Qatar Stock Exchange (QSE) showed a surge of 88.8% year-on-year in profits during the fourth quarter of 2017, while their cash dividends recorded QAR 1.05 billion, according to Mubasher’s statistics.
The Transportation sector’s profits hiked to QAR 405.1 million ($111.3 million) in Q4-17, up from QAR 214.7 million ($58.9 million) in the same quarter a year earlier.
The transportation sector consists of three companies; namely Gulf Warehousing Company (GWCS), Qatar Gas Transport (QGTS) and Qatar Navigation (QNNS).
QGTS’s profits jumped 16.2% to QAR 239.8 million in Q4-17, while GWCS posted a 4.8% rise in profits to QAR 58.2 million during the same period.
QNNS’s turned profitable in Q4-17 after generating QAR 407.1 million in profits, the data showed.
Annual Performance
Year-on-year, the transportation sector’s profits declined 18.2% to QAR 1.5 billion during the full-year 2017.
QNNS dragged the sector's annual earnings down, as the company’s profits dropped due to an 11% increase in the financing costs to QAR 195.2 million, in addition to losses worth QAR 6.6 million, which adversely impacted the whole sector, Mubasher's data founded.
Assets
By the end of 2017, assets of the QSE-listed transportation firms declined 6.9% to QAR 48.7 million versus QAR 52.4 million in the previous year.
Cash dividends
Although the sector’s annual performance declined, cash dividends of the three firms inched up 0.5% to QAR 1.05 billion in Q4-17 from QAR 1.04 billion in the same quarter the prior year.
Translated by: Kholoud Mohamed Hussein