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+--- Thread: Health stocks end Q1 with weakest profit since 2016 recession (/showthread.php?tid=18348)
Health stocks end Q1 with weakest profit since 2016 recession - Edoman - 06-13-2019
Health stocks end Q1 with weakest profit since 2016 recession
Listed Nigerian Healthcare companies, after two successive years of growing profit from the 2016 recession level, saw their bottom-line decline significantly in Q1 2019, with figures showing a 3- year low.
The combined first quarterly profit of health-related stocks on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) dipped 62.98 percent in Q1, as all the firms which have reported their earnings scorecard noted a drop in profit- with the exception of two players which only pared their losses in the quarter.
Data from NSE show the cumulative profit of health companies dropped from N687.11 million in Q1 2018 to N110.2 million in Q1 2019, after it had appeared to be reaching its pre-recession high of N850.67 million which was achieved in 2014.
Healthcare companies covered in the analysis are Ekocorp, Fidson, GlaxoSmithKline, May & Baker, Morison, Pharma Deko, Neimeith, and Union Diagnostics.
The double-digit decline in profit, was on the heels of revenue woes of the companies as the average sales decline stood at -15.13 percent in the period.
GSK however in the period improved its sales by 19 percent and Morison recorded of 29.29 percent more revenue, while Pharma Deko, at -74 percent, suffered the biggest decline which affected its bottom-line.
The constraint on PharmaDeko was “due to working capital deficiency as company funds are tied down as a result of a temporary suspension placed on cough syrup containing Codeine by the Federal Government,” the company noted in its Q1 2019 earnings report.
For the recently concluded quarter, Ekocorp reported a loss of N53.92 million, 19 percent less than it had earned in the same quarter of 2018 while Fidson’s profit plummeted by 29 percent, dipping to N144.89 million.
GlaxoSmithKline made 60 percent less profit in the period showing N102.44 million as against N258.29 million garnered in Q1 2018 and M&B’s bottom-line shrank 18 percent to N133.59 million.
Morison was able to pare its loss by 20 percent, even though the company was unable to turn the corner in the quarter. PharmaDeko and Neimeith recorded significant upset in their books, with both healthcare companies reversing previous profit positions by as much as 500 percent to post losses.
Union Diagnostics pared its profit by 68 percent, to 32.83 million, overall showing a grim quarter for health stocks on Lagos Bourse.
Nigeria’s healthcare sector, proxied by human health and social services, fell year –on-year by 0.37 percent and quarter-on-quarter by 9.54 percent in the first quarter of 2019, according to data from the National Bureau of Statistics.
Similarly, pharmaceutical and chemical products manufacturing GDP fell by 8.24 percent quarter-on-quarter, although it improved by 1.36 percent year on year, the first quarter GDP report of the state funded data agency showed.