In a robust third quarter for Caribbean Cement Co., the producer reported an eightfold growth of $617 million that was fueled by stronger sales and lower production costs, as well as a more manageable debt load, according to The Gleaner.
In the nine-month period, the company made $1.48 billion of profit off turnover of close to $12 billion. Last year, the company reported a profit of $25 million.
“Domestic sales volume for the third quarter exceeded the corresponding period in 2014 by 22 percent, and for the nine-month period was 9 percent above the volumes in 2014,” said Chairman Christopher Dehring and Director José Luis Seijo Gonzalez, TCL Group CEO, in a joint statement.
Revenues grew by close to three-quarters of a billion dollars in the quarter to $4.2 billion, and by more than a billion dollars year to date to $11.76 billion. This puts the company on track to better the record $14 billion sales revenue in 2014.
Caribbean Cement also reported a 73 percent reduction in interest charges for the quarter “as a result of the company’s financial restructuring initiative, resulting in some prepayments of long-term debt in excess of $800 million,” the directors said.
The debt rescheduling occurred under a group-wide program through which parent company Trinidad Cement Ltd. restructured its balance sheet to shed debt and boost equity. That program also doubled Cemex’s ownership of TCL, with a stake that is just shy of 40 percent. Cemex executive Alejandro Vares was named general manager of Caribbean Cement in May.
