Results Round-up
Oil exploration company Afren saw its shares go down on Thursday after disappointing results during the first nine months of the year.
Revenues dropped to $798.5m in the nine months ended 30 September from $1.2bn same time last year.
Ongoing delays, due to bad weather conditions at the Ebok exploration, affected the company’s profits before tax, which decreased from $427m to $165.8m.
The company’s results were affected by news earlier this month that it has fired its chief executive Osman Shahenshah and chief operating officer Shahid Ullah for gross misconduct. An independent review found they had received unauthorised payments from the group.
The company said at the time it is planning to take legal action to recover the missing sums, although said they had not resulted in a material loss for the group.
Earnings per share decreased to 15.4c from 15.6c, while cash and equivalents dropped to $648.6m from $779.8m.
Afren said its operations at the Nigerian field Okoro continue to run “smoothly, while appraisal drilling in the field of Ogo (OPL 310) has been now delayed to 2015. The Ebok Central Fault block installation is expected to be completed by the end of the year.
Interim chief executive Toby Hayward said: “Management remains focused on operational performance, having made good progress on our core development projects in Nigeria, which are expected to drive significant growth in production and cash flow in the medium-term.
“We are moving forward with our play-opening discovery at Ogo, while we continue to de-risk an exciting set of exploration opportunities across our portfolio."
Helped by its best ever third quarter result, estate agents group Countrywide said it remained in line to hit full year targets despite cautioning that the rebalancing of price expectations in London might dampen short-term volume trends.
After London-focused rival Foxtons warned on profits last week, broader-based Countrywide maintained its forecast for 2014 market volume growth of between 10% and 15%.
Group total income of £188.4m meant growth slowed, as largely expected, to 22% in the quarter from 29% in the first half, with group EBITDA of £40.2m as growth slowed to 38% from 70% in the prior six months.
EBITDA margin swelled 2.9 percentage points to 21.3%.
Notwithstanding the expected slowdown in sales volumes in London, the FTSE 250 group's London & Premier division recorded broadly flat quarterly revenues and earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) year-on-year, helped by a strong lettings performance.
Year-on-year growth in market volumes was expected to slow in the third quarter, it pointed out, partly due to the government's Mortgage Market Review and tougher year-on-year comparatives.
Countrywide, which also operates the Bairstow Eves, Hamptons and Abbots estate agency chains, increased house exchanges in its estate agency segment by 11% to 18,008, down from 20% in the first half, while the London & Premier arm saw a 9% decline to 1,704.
Residential lettings properties under management maintained its strong growth with a 26% rise to 66,945.
The 18,713 mortgages arranged by the financial services arm was a 15% improvement. HSBC also chose Countrywide as its first partner after its recent decision to sell mortgages in the UK intermediary/broker channel for the first time.
Looking further forward, the company said there would be a "number of factors" that will make the market more volatile in 2015, including the General Election in May, the prospect of interest rate rises, the appetite of lenders to grow their mortgage volumes and the general economic backdrop.
"These factors, together with the recent slow down in market volumes, are likely to result in some volatility in the phasing of market growth during 2015."