CMS Bhd reports stable earnings, Malaysia

CMS Bhd (CMSB) reported a total revenue of MYR867.84m (US$206m) for the first half of 2015, a rise of 14.7 per cent on the MYR756.6m recorded a year earlier. Pretax profit in the first half of 2015 remained stable at MYR161.72m (versus MYR164.84m in 1H14).

The group’s profit after tax and non-controlling interests was MYR98.08m, down 6.7 per cent from the MYR105.11m posted a year earlier which had benefitted from the impact of land sales.

The company said the main contributors towards pretax profit were the Cement, Construction Materials & Trading and Construction & Road Maintenance divisions. The Cement division posted a pretax profit of MYR54.59m, down seven per cent YoY. Construction Materials & Trading saw a rise of 67 per cent YoY to MYR48.34m. Meanwhile, the Construction & Road Maintenance segment also improved pretax profit earnings at MYR46.89m.

Commenting on the results, Richard Curtis, Group Managing Director of CMSB, said: “The first six months of the year has been a challenging period for us in terms of meeting performance targets despite strong sales in certain divisions. This is largely due to macro factors outside our control. These include the impact of GST [General Sales Tax] on consumer sentiment and in the Cement division the higher cost of raw materials and of imported cement cement resulting from the strong US dollar.

"Within Sarawak, however, the continued focus on the state’s infrastructure has resulted in strongly improved PBT [pretax profit] results from our Construction Materials & Trading and Construction & Road Maintenance divisions.

“With a stable performance recorded in 1H15, we are cautiously optimistic that we will record a satisfactory financial performance for the full year of 2015, aided by our view that overall CMSB’s business will remain on a steady uptrend.”