Audited report and accounts of Presco for the year ended december 31, 2019, the latest auidt, showed a decline of 7.6 per cent in trunover but a wider increase in costs of sales depressed the margin by 10 percentage points.
With less equity financing capacity, the company financing strcuture weakned duirng the period. Debt-to-equity ratio rose to 32.8 per cent in 2019 as against 21.4 per cent in 2018. Equity fund/total assets ratio dropped from 41.2 per cent to 39.3 per cent. Current liabilities/total assets ratio depressed from 36.1 per cent to 37.0 per cent.Total number of employees increased by 30.2 per cent from 506 persons in 2018 to 659 persons in 2019. Staff costs rose by 10.5 per cent from N1.
Operating expenses increased by 13.8 per cent from N5.99 billion to N6.81 billion while interest expenses jumped by 59 per cent from N1.34 billion to N2.13 billion. With these, pre-tax profit dropped from N6.32 billion to N6.06 billion while profit after tax declined by 10 per cent from N4.28 billion to N3.84 billion. Earnings per share, based on net comprehensive income, stood at N3.74 in 2019 as against N4.30 in 2018.