Caverton declares N11.9 billion half-year revenue

CAVERTON Offshore Support Group PLC (COSG), the leading provider of marine, aviation and logistics services to local and international oil and gas companies in Nigeria has announced its unaudited 2015 half year revenue of N11.9 billion, a five per cent decrease over same period last year and a two per cent drop in indirect operating expenses compared to half year 2014.

Commenting on the results, CEO of COSG PLC, Bode Makanjuola said: “While the oil and gas operating environment continues to be challenging, we remain optimistic business sentiments will shift for the better.

We witnessed a 12per cent increase in contract revenue, but overall, revenue slowed due to a softer ad-hoc market. The increase in direct operating costs was mainly due to lease of assets to service our growing clientele.” “We will continue to maintain efficient use of our human and capital assets and align our services to the prevailing business environment.

With the signing of our two-year contract extension with Shell, in addition to increasing interest for support services from Nigerian Oil Companies (NOC’s), we hope to continue to grow revenue on the contract side.”

Makanjuola further stated that his company would continue to take advantage of available opportunities to increase its market penetration in Nigeria as well as geographical diversification across Sub-Saharan Africa, adding that it was also making in-roads into non-oil and gas sectors of the economy. “Our planned development of the first aviation training centre and aviation maintenance, repair and overhaul services in Nigeria remains on course,” he said.

The breakdown of the revenue of N11.9m shows Operating Profit  (excluding other operating income) of N1.88 billion; profit before tax of N1.77 billion; profit after tax of N1.09 billion and EPS of 33 kobo.

Profitability ratios are: EBITDA Margin of 25 per cent; Net Profit Margin of nine per cent and EBITDA/Interest Expense of 3.65x, while Capital Structure Ratios are put as Net Debt/EBITDA of 4.27x; Net Debt/Equity of 1.00x; Net Debt/Operating Profit of 6.75x; Net Debt/Total Capitalisation of 42 per cent and Total Debt/Total Capitalisation of 58 per cent.

Caverton Helicopters signed a two-year contract extension with Shell at the sixth annual general meeting of Caverton Offshore Support Group Plc held on May 6, 2015.  MD Caverton Helicopters, Capt Josiah Choms, was also elected to the board of HeliOffshore in the arrangement.

In addition, Caverton Helicopters also signed a Helicopter Charter Service Agreement (HCSA) with Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC).

This service provision will cover offshore platforms operated by Nigerian Petroleum Development Company (NPDC) as well as all flight requests from other NNPC subsidiaries on a call-off basis.

COSG migrated its accounting platform to the SAP Enterprise Resource Planning Tool, a new system which was customized to meet accounting and reporting needs also known as a game changer for Caverton as it enables it to become more efficient and easily compliant with reporting standards.