Riyadh – Mubasher: Abdullah Abdul Mohsen Al Khodari Sons Company on Sunday posted its results for the third quarter and first nine months of 2018, suffering losses in both.

The widened its net losses, after zakat and tax, by 241% year-on-year to SAR 25.96 million ($6.92 million) in Q3-18, versus SAR 7.62 million ($2.03 million), it said in a filing to the Saudi Stock Exchange (Tadawul).

The Saudi firm attributed the rise in its losses to fewer project awards as well as major challenges facing the Saudi contracting sector on the back of low liquidity, which in turn resulted in slower progress across the company’s projects.

Net losses also increased on the back of a drop in revenues after the construction and engineering firm registered a loss on a provision pertaining to non-tradable assets.

Sales amounted to SAR 62.169 million between July and September, down 44.38% from SAR 111.775 million in the prior-year period, while total losses surged 324.48% year-on-year to SAR 21.51 million from SAR 5.067 million.

As for the nine months to September, Al Khodari incurred SAR 24.054 million in net losses after zakat and taxes, marking a decrease of 35.33% from SAR 37.199 million in the same period of 2017.

Sales retreated by 56.74% year-on-year to SAR 187.4 million versus SAR 433.178 million, the statement showed. Meanwhile, total losses for the first nine months of 2018 amounted to SAR 36.544 million, a rise of 29.75% from SAR 28.164 million.

Losses per share (LPS) fell to SAR 0.43 in the nine-month period ended 30 September 2018 versus SAR 0.67 in same period of 2017.

Earlier this month, Al Khodari said it would delay the disclosure of its financial results for Q3-18, citing the fulfilment of some audit requirements. It did post a 73% year-on-year drop in losses to SAR 4.86 million in Q2-18 from SAR 18.09 million in the year-ago period on the back of lower costs and administrative expenses.

In H1-18, the company turned a profit with SAR 1.9 million, against a loss of SAR 29.6 million in the same period of 2017.

It is worth noting that Al-Khodari had suffered losses of SAR 12.74 million in Q1-18, registering a year-on-year decrease of 28.26% from SAR 17.76 million.

The Saudi Capital Market Authority (CMA) decided to suspend trading on Al-Khodari starting 12 November after the company failed to disclose its financial results during the period dedicated to such announcements.