How Afrimat lifted its second-quarter game
Building materials and commodities company says political events in first three months of financial year hurt business confidence
Afrimat CEO Andries van Heerden played down talk that the supplier of industrial minerals, commodities and construction materials was feeling the pinch of SA’s downgraded economy in its interim results for the six months ended August 2017. Instead, he said on Thursday, about R320m spent on getting the group’s iron-ore mine set to export 1-million tonnes a year to China helped take the gloss off the numbers. That said, Afrimat acknowledges tough economic conditions and that heavy rainfall and a clump of public holidays had knocked the March to May 2017 quarter. "The second quarter, however, delivered exceptionally good results, almost compensating for the first quarter," Van Heerden said. The group’s diversification strategy had enabled "very good results" from relatively newly acquired subsidiaries such as Infrasors and Cape Lime, and good results from the construction materials business in the Western Cape. Headline earnings per share in the latest six-month period were up 7.4% to ...
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