Industrial holding company Invicta reported an uptick in annual earnings on Monday, reflecting the payoff of the group’s deal making over the past year.
Invicta closed two big deals in the year to end-March, the first being the disposal of property owned by its Kian Ann joint venture in Singapore. The property was disposed of and the operations moved to China, which resulted in a one-off profit attributable to Invicta of R222m, or 231c, which accounted for a substantial portion of the 57% increase in basic earnings per share.
The cash injection was largely responsible for the company’s stronger annual results, which showed headline earnings per share (HEPS) up 14% at 534c.
Revenue climbed 6% year on year to R8.11bn.
The company also acquired a 100% interest in UK-based Nationwide Bearing Company, which provides bearings and oil-seals to the agricultural and earth moving machinery aftermarkets.
This resulted in Invicta reporting a net asset value of R59.31 per share, up 13% from the previous year.
In an effort to boost shareholder value, the company bought back 4.9-million ordinary shares for R157m and redeemed all 6.9-million of its outstanding preference shares for R703m, taking the number of ordinary issued shares down to just under 92-million.
The buyback scheme resulted in Invicta’s shareholder equity being 6% lower than the previous year.
The group declared an interim dividend of 115c per share.
The company, which is chaired by SA billionaire Christo Wiese, has gained less than 2% since the start of the year, with a value of R3.074bn on the JSE.
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