Caribbean cement player Trinidad Cement Ltd (TCL) has reported a 61 per cent decline in its after-tax profit for the three-month period ending March 31, 2017.
In an interim financial report published by the Trinidad and Tobago (T&T) Stock Exchange, TCL said that it had generated total revenue of $422 million for Q1 of 2017, (12 per cent lower than for the comparable period in 2016, when it generated $480 million).
The company said in a statement that the fall in revenues was due to "lower domestic grey cement sales, mainly reflective of a slowdown in the construction industry in Trinidad and Tobago – one of its major markets, compounded by increased competition in the Caribbean region."
The group earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, loss on disposal of property, plant and equipment, and manpower and stockholding restructuring costs (adjusted EBITDA) was $97.5 million, a decline of 36.5 per cent compared with the year-earlier period.
TCL is majority owned by Mexican cement giant CEMEX, which started a takeover bid for the locally listed company in December last year.