Jamaican publicly-listed creative company, iCreate Limited, is turning the corner, as its financial fortunes are looking on the improve.

The St Andrew-based creative training institution has made a small profit for the first three quarters of 2021 ended September 30, compared to the losses suffered during the comparable period of 2020. Net profit for the three quarters under review amounted to $3.87 million versus a loss of $2.26 million in 2020.

For the September third quarter, net loss totalled $536,551 compared to $5.35 million loss booked in the corresponding quarter last year. For the nine months, iCreate reported comprehensive income of $3.87 million, relative to a comprehensive income of $4.81 million booked in 2020.

For the September quarter, total comprehensive loss amounted to $536,551 versus an income of $1.72 million booked for the corresponding period. Revenues for the period under review went down to $31.83 million, representing a 32 per cent decline from the $47.12 million reported a year ago.

Flat revenues during review period

For the third quarter, iCreate posted $7.97 million in revenue compared to the $7.86 million booked in 2020. The management explains that flat revenues for the third quarter were a result of the fact that, “the education division of the company continues to be impacted by the fallout experienced from the COVID-19 pandemic.”

According to the management, “Our decline in performance in revenues is based on our inability to conduct the physical and hands-on training that we used to. These account for 60 per cent of revenues. The company continues to find new ways of earning and we are pleased that our video production division of the company was able to step up during the last quarter and delivered 27.9 per cent of total revenues.”

The company expects to continue to see growth in the division going into 2022. The directors announced that the acquisition of Mobile Edge has been completed.

This will see a joint venture being executed to form a new company, GetPaid Limited. The GetPaid Suite is a set of Jamaican made e-commerce payment solutions, built specifically to serve the diverse needs of businesses who want to sell online and service customers anywhere-anytime.

Total direct costs amounted to $5.26 million for the nine months period compared to $7.97 million for the nine months of 2020. Thus, resulting in gross profit of $26.57 million relative to $39.16 million booked last year.

Containing operating expenses

Total operating expenses for the period closed at $22.32 million in contrast to $38.86 million for the corresponding period of 2020. Operating expenses for the third quarter totalled $6.65 million coming from $11.29 million in 2020.

Administrative expense decreased by 46 per cent to $19.39 million coming from the 2020 booking of $35.94 million for the nine-month period. Depreciation and amortisation expense had a marginal increase to close at $2.93 million, virtually unchanged compared to the corresponding period in 2020.

Finance cost for the nine months amounted to $3.46 million relative to $2.62 million a year ago. As at September 30, 2021, total assets decreased to close at $40.12 million (2020: $57.67 million). The decrease was largely due to a $8.90 million decline in ‘Fixed assets’ which closed at $10.84 million (2020: $19.74 million).