Johannesburg - South Africa's Barloworld reported a 9% fall in half-year profit on Monday as a slowdown in mining activity hurt its equipment business in southern Africa.
Barloworld, the largest dealer of Caterpillar mining trucks in southern Africa, said headline earnings per share (EPS) fell to 335 cents in the six months ended March compared with 367 cents a year earlier.
Headline EPS is the main profit measure in South Africa and strips out certain one-off items.
The current order book for equipment in southern Africa is down on September 2015 and this year will be the fourth consecutive year of decline since the peak in 2012, Barloworld Chief Executive Clive Thomson told Reuters.
But the recent pick-up in commodity prices has to some extent improved the outlook for marginal mines, and Thomson sees mining project opportunities that could boost revenues in 2017 and 2018.
“They typically have been in the pipeline for a couple of years but mining companies have been deferring them,” said Thomson.
Some copper and zinc projects in South Africa have been put out to tender and Barloworld is competing for those, he added.
The firm's earnings were padded by its equipment business in Russia, where mining companies have benefited from a weaker rouble and sales grew 22 percent in dollar terms.
REUTERS