By Ana Monteiro
April 23 (Bloomberg) -- Eveready East Africa Ltd., a Kenyan dry-cell battery manufacturer, said fiscal first-half profit after-tax surged to 12.8 million shillings ($165,300) from 290,000 shillings a year earlier after the company cut its overhead and financing costs.
Revenue fell 2 percent to 814.21 million shillings for the six months through March, mainly due to currency fluctuations within regional markets, which “negatively impacted” the group’s ability to compete outside its home market, the Nairobi, Kenya-based company said in a stock exchange statement today.
Zinc, used mainly to make batteries, more than doubled to $2,375 in the year through March. Eveready “has therefore taken a deliberate decision to buy some of the critical materials in advance, which has lead to a 46 percent increase in stock levels” compared with a year earlier, Chairman Moody Awori and Managing Director Steven Smith said in the statement.
Eveready shares climbed as much as 8.1 percent to 4.7 shillings and traded 3.5 percent higher at 4.50 shillings as of 12:47 p.m., extending the gain this year to 55 percent.
To contact the reporter on this story: Ana Monteiro in Johannesburg at
amonteiro4@bloomberg.netLast Updated: April 23, 2010 06:47 EDT
Go overdrive in purchasing the goods when there's blood on the streets, expecially if the blood is your own