Alijarah Holding (Q.P.S.C.) (NLCS) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Hello, and welcome to the National Leasing Alijarah Conference Call. I would like to advise all participants that this call is being recorded. Thank you. I'd now like to welcome Mr. Shahan Keushgerian to begin the conference. Shahan, over to you.

Thank you. Hello, everyone. I want to welcome you to Alijarah Holding's First Quarter 2024 Financial Results Conference Call. So on this call from management, we have the company's CFO, Rami Soussou and Alaa Al Shekly, Head of Business Development and Investments. So as usual, we will conduct this call with first management reviewing the company's results followed by a Q&A session. I will now turn the call over to Rami. Please go ahead.

Good afternoon, and thank you for introduction. Today, we have with me Hamad [ Suleiman ] unfortunately Alaa won't be able to join the call. Today, we'll be discussing the Q1 performance for the year 2024. I'll start with the -- our net profit. This year, we have a growth of 16% compared to last quarter -- last year's quarter 1, 2023. Our net profit increased to reach QAR 4.77 million compared to QAR 4.09 million as I mentioned earlier, increased 16%. And this was mainly due from the revenue coming from our core business between Alijarah [indiscernible] and Alijarah Property and our investments in fixed income and deposits. Moving to the income statement. Our total expenses, we managed to drop them compared to last year's quarter 1 by 4.10% to stand at 9.6% compared to 10.09%. Our net operating income has increased by 27% to reach QAR 5.22 million compared to QAR 4.10 million. There was an increase on the finance cost to reach QAR 450,000 compared to QAR 8,000 last year. And as I mentioned earlier, our net profit for the period increased by 16%, together with the earnings per share were increased 16% to reach QAR 0.01 compared to QAR 0.08. Our financial position. Our total assets almost remain unchanged by an increase of 1%, not a major change. For our current liabilities, there was an increase of 24%. We have utilized the remaining wakalah that we are using to do some investments and expansion in the company. Our equity dropped by 1.8% due to the fact that we have paid our dividend last year at QAR 40 million. Our cash flow in general, increased -- sorry, decreased in the net cash operating -- using operating activity. There was a decrease of 64%. Our net cash used in investing activities decrease as well. And our cash flow used in financing -- from financing activity has increased. Our net increase in our cash 3.6 compared to a decrease of 11.59 in Q1 2023. Our cash towards the end of the period is QAR 39.4 million compared to QAR 11.3 million. We can open the floor for questions now. Go ahead, and we'll be more than happy to answer any questions. Thank you.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from the line of [ Ejayan Mohammed ] from Al Rayan Investment.

This is [indiscernible] from Al Rayan Investment. You talked about utilizing the funds for some investments and some new acquisitions, I think. Could you talk a little bit about what your strategy with regard to that?

Mainly our strategy it's -- remain unchanged. It's the same strategy that was set back in 2022. I was starting to deploy the fund between fixed income to Sukuk and some real estate and some acquisition on some companies. At the moment, the first pillar of the strategy has been utilized, we have some Sukuks that are giving a good yield to the company. We are investing more. And now we're in the second part, where we are thinking of some expansion in the real estate, some investment opportunities are on table still not fully crystallized with the management once things are clear, and we have to go ahead for sure will be disclosed to the public. Thank you. I hope I answered your question.

Yes. Is there any time line to this decision when you will be investing this real restate project or something you mentioned.

It's on the table, as I mentioned, and should take place, hopefully, as we see it, and there was no any obstacles facing us should maybe between Q2 and Q3, there should be some disclosures about any new opportunities that are being utilized.

[Operator Instructions] There are no further questions at this time. I will now hand the call back to Mr. Shahan Keushgerian.

Okay. If there are no more questions left, we can wrap up this call. Thank you, Rami, for giving us an update on the first quarter results, and we'll pick this up again next quarter. Goodbye.

Thank you. Thank you. Goodbye.

Thank you. This concludes today's conference call. You may now disconnect.

All right. Thank you.