Kenyan listed media company Standard Group has bounced into profit in full year 2016 after posting a loss the previous year, helped by falling operating costs and slightly higher revenues, it said on Saturday.
Standard said in a statement that it made a pretax profit of 269.48 million shillings ($2.63 million) last year after losing 395.8 million shillings in 2015, while revenues were up 7 percent to 4.82 billion shillings.
Revenue increase was mainly from Radio and TV segments while Print revenue was flat.
Direct costs came in at Ksh 1.3 Billion with overhead costs declined by 12% to Ksh 3.0 Billion from Ksh 3.5 Billion recorded in the previous year.
Standard, which publishes newspapers, owns a radio and television stations, websites and does outdoor advertising, said total operating costs fell 6 percent to 4.41 billion shillings.
Profit after tax was at Ksh 199 Million compared to a loss of Ksh 290 Million in 2015.
Its earnings per share rose to 2.14 shillings from a loss per share of 2.95 shillings in 2015. Its board recommended that no dividend be paid out to allow for more investments in its broadcast business.
Source; Kenyan Wallstreet, Reuters, NSE, SGL
