Cape Town - Hulamin said on Monday that improved manufacturing performance and a weaker rand helped it to lift headline earnings from R78.8 million to R152 million during the six months to the end of June.
Richard Jacob, chief executive of Africa’s leading manufacturer of rolled and extruded aluminium products, said these two factors had mitigated the effects of continued weak global and local market conditions, local inflation and softer rolling margins.
The company said in a statement that revenue for the period had increased by 25 percent, from R3.9 billion to R4.9 billion, despite markets remaining subdued and over-supplied in South Africa and abroad.
“Efforts to address cost reduction opportunities and operational efficiency improvements achieved further gains in unit costs, product yields, overall sales volumes and product mix,” Jacob said.
“For the balance of 2016 we expect can body stock volumes to increase in both local and export markets allowing us to source more scrap metal units locally,” he added.
Headline earnings per share for the period under review increased from 25 cents to 48. The board said it would not be declaring a dividend before evaluating conditions for the full year.
ANA