Apex profit increases tenfold

Apex Corporation, one of the top five performers on the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange, whose share price soared $2.35 to $50 a share last year, had an excellent performance during the year ending October with its sales more than doubling from $2.15 billion to $4.33 billion and net profit increasing more than ten fold from $56.9 million to $633.4 million.

Though sales dropped from $8.7 billion to $6.6 billion in inflation adjusted terms, net profit shot up from $93.1 million to $481.7 million.

The company says its exports increased significantly enabling it to fulfil some of its foreign currency requirements.

Operating profit trebled from $233.8 million to $886.7 million.

The communication division saw sales increasing marginally from $534 million to $968 million but trading profit more than trebled from $20 million to $78 million.

Supersonic, however, had a poor performance but there were encouraging signs in the last quarter that the unit could return to profitability.

The foundries and engineering division had a better performance with sales more than doubling from $432 million to $905 million. Trading profit increased from $84 million to $164 million.

Both Zimcast and McMeekan increased exports and had outstanding order books for exports at financial year end.

The company says its current assets increased by 118 percent following the valuation of Gulliver Consolidated and its cash reserves went up by 361 percent to $254 million.

Its current liabilities increased by 59 percent to $1.3 billion while borrowings increased by 12 percent largely due to working capital requirements.

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