Riyadh – Mubasher: Abdullah Al Othaim Markets Company on Monday reported an 11.8% year-on-year growth in its profits for the first quarter of 2018.

Net profit jumped to SAR 67.26 million in Q1-18, versus SAR 60.15 million in Q1-17, the company said in a filing to the Saudi Stock Exchange (Tadawul).

The Tadawul-listed firm said that the previous results include a fire incident loss occurred at one of the branches amounting SAR 3.5 million. The claim to reimburse losses was collected from the insurance company during Q4-17, it noted.

The company attributed the increase in profits to a 6.02% jump in sales and a decrease in financing expenses.

Sales levelled up to SAR 1.8 billion in the three-month period ended March 2018, compared to SAR 1.7 billion for the same period of the prior year.

As for Q4-17, Al Othaims’s profits hiked 47.68% to SAR 166.82 million, from SAR 95.5 million in the comparative period of 2016.

By the end of Sunday’s session, Al Othaims’s stock rose 0.9% at SAR 83.20.