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Cape Town - PPC [JSE:PPC] stocks dropped as much as 17% on Monday, on news that the company's headline earnings per share (Heps) for the six months to end-September 2016 are expected to be between 65% and 85% lower than reported for the previous six-month period to end-March 2016.
This translates to expected headline earnings of between 19 cents and 8 cents per share, PPC said in a trading statement. It added that basic earnings per share for the six months to end-September 2016 are expected to be between 70% and 90% lower than the basic earnings as reported for the previous half year, translating to expected basic earnings of between 21c and 7c/share.
PPC attributed this drop mainly to the high financing costs incurred for the raising fee and related interest charges for the R2bn liquidity and guarantee facility secured in June 2016 to redeem the outstanding PPC notes.
The non-recurrence of the exceptional
profit of R117m made on the sale of non-core assets in the prior period also contributed to the decline in basic earnings per
share. In addition, the devaluation of local currencies - in particular the Democratic Republic of Congo
and Rwanda - against the US dollar also had a significant impact.
PPC pointed out that the above information has not been reviewed or reported on by the company's external auditors.
PPC stocks staged a strong recovery in afternoon trade on the JSE and stood at R5.60 on the JSE at 15:51, down 1.93%.
