Having incurred a loss of $56.92 million in 2020, Lasco Financial Services has reversed those losses to post a modest net profit of $156.75 million for its financial year ended March 31, 2021.

Taxes for the period under review amounted to $103.63 million coming from $78.89 million in 2020. Net profit for the quarter amounted to $2.84 million relative to 2020 fourth quarter loss of $133.85 million.

Profit before tax for 20021 was $260.38 million relative to the $21.97 million booked at the end 2020. For the quarter, profit before tax closed at $10.88 million relative to a loss of $170.19 million documented twelve months earlier.

Consequently, due to the decrease in total expenses, profit from operations increased by 94 per cent to total of $447.43 million relative to the $230.31 million booked last year.  As for the quarter, Lasco Financial Services booked a profit from operations of $56.97 million relative a loss of $109.90 million recorded at the end of 2020.

Curtailing operating expenses

Operating expenses amounted to $1.85 billion, a decline of 19 per cent over the $2.28 billion reported for 2020. Of this amount, administrative costs closed at $1.079 billion at end of March 2021 compared with the 2020 booking of $1.082 million, while selling and promotional costs amounted to $765.82 million during the review period. This down from the $1.19 billion incurred a year earlier.

Lasco Financial Services recorded trading income of $2.22 billion, representing a reduction of eight per cent when compared to $2.40 billion posted at the end of 2020 while trading income for the fourth quarter amounted to $543.15 million coming from $587.89 million in 2020.

Other income decreased to $75.09 million versus $102.87 million in 2020. This resulted in an overall income of $2.29 billion, a reduction of nine per cent when compared to $2.51 billion for the corresponding period in 2020. For the fourth quarter, total income closed at $605.21 million (2020: $579.23 million).

Finance costs decreased to $187.05 million, down from $208.35 million, posted a year earlier. Earnings per share (EPS) amounted to $0.12, while for the quarter, EPS closed at $0.002.

As at March 31, 2021, the company’s total assets closed the period at $4.30 billion, nine per cent more than its value of $3.96 billion a year ago. This increase was largely due to ‘Cash and cash equivalents’ and ‘Short term deposits’ which closed at $1.06 billion (2020: $487.44 million) and $312.76 million (2020: $235.49 million), respectively. However, these were tempered by a decline in ‘Receivables’ by $272.67 million to $1.64 billion (2020: $1.91 billion).

Shareholders’ equity attributable to stockholders of the company amounted to $1.70 billion relative to $1.54 billion booked in 2020. This translates to a book value per share of $1.34 (2020: $1.21).