Ezra suffers 49% profit crash to US$6.8m

Very disappointing set of figures.

According to OCBC, Ezra Holdings reported a 54% YoY rise in revenue to US$278.7m and a 44% rise in gross profit to US$49.9m in 1QFY13. But higher administrative expenses, a lower share of profit of associated companies, and a higher tax rate led to a 49% fall in net profit to US$6.8m.

Stripping out exceptional items such as fair value changes of financial instruments and forex changes, OCBC estimates core net profit to be around US$4.3m, 16% lower than 1QFY12.

Here's more from OCBC:

This represents only about 13% of our full year core net profit estimate of US$33m, which is already one of the lowest in the street.

The group also announced new contract wins worth up to US$160m for several projects, including 1) US$85m of subsea work for an oil major in Asia Pacific, a client in Malaysia and exercise of options and variation orders for Statoil, and 2) five charter contracts worth about US$75m (average tenor 2.6 years, including options).

The outstanding order book for the subsea division stood at US$850m as of end 1QFY13, while the total bid book remains at about US$4.4b. We estimate about 60% of the US$4.4b amount may be awarded in FY13, with a success rate of 35%.

This translates to an estimated new order win of about US$925m for the subsea division in FY13. We estimate Ezra has secured about 48% of our new order win assumption.