Nishat Power Limited (PSX: NPL) announced its financial performance for FY19 this week with an overall increase of 17 percent in its net earnings for the fiscal year. However, the growth in the IPP’s bottom-line did not come from the top. NPL’s revenues witnessed a decline of around 8 percent, year-on-year, primarily due to weaker generation levels during the year – or the dispatches to the power purchaser as the RLNG replaces furnace oil in the power generation mix. As a result, NPL operated at a load factor of only 39 percent in FY19 versus 70 percent in FY18. At the same time, lower furnace oil prices also effected the sales growth.
The company’s gross profit increased by 18 percent year-on-year due to lower cost of sales corresponding to lower revenues. More than the company’s fundamentals, the growth in earnings for NPL came from the slippages in the currency depreciation including the higher penal income.
However, the company’s increase finance cost restricted the growth in NPL’s earnings. The increase in finance cost was primarily due to higher interest rate expense in a rising interest rate environment.
NPL did not announce any final cash dividend for the year, which goes on to show that the company’s been facing liquidity issues amid rising receivables and the accumulated circular debt.
While the issue of circular debt will continue to burden the IPPs at least in the near future, the FY20 started off on a good note in terms of generation with NPL operating at better load factor of 49 percent in July 2019, which is slated to continue to be better for the summer months at least – and likely better dispatch levels in 1QFY20.
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