Qatari Investors Group Q.P.S.C. (QIGD) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Hello, everyone, and welcome to Qatari Investors Group Conference Call. Please note that this call is being recorded. I'd now like to hand over to our moderator for today, Roy Thomas. You may now begin.

Thanks, Ali. Hello, everyone. This is Roy Thomas from QNB Financial Services. I want to welcome everyone to Qatari Investors Group's Third Quarter and 9 Months 2024 Financial Results Conference Call. On this call from Qatari Investors Group, we have Rami Atieh, the Finance Director; and Muhammad Shiraz, the Group Financial Controller. We will conduct this conference call with management first to begin the company's results followed by Q&A. I will turn the call now over to Rami Atieh. Go ahead, Rami.

Thank you, Roy. Hello, ladies and gentlemen. It's my pleasure to welcome you the Qatari Investors Group IR call. My name is Rami Atieh. I'm the Finance Director of the group. And here with me, Mr. Muhammad Shiraz, our Group Financial Controller. I will go over a review in English, followed by the same review in Arabic, and then we will move on to the questions. We are pleased to present to you the third quarter results of QIG Group for 2024. We will highlight the financial performance of the group and the progress that has been realized during the period. The group achieved a total revenue of QAR 366 million for the period, which is lower than the same period last year by 5%. This drop was led by the industrial sector as a result of the market slowdown in the construction sector as compared to last year. We have seen a slight improvement in revenue though cement export that started this quarter, and we will push for more improvement in the fourth quarter. Other sectors such as Marine Services, has seen a spike of 51% in revenue compared to last year after introducing a new line of business. The group's net profit for the period amounted to QAR 118 million, a 5% decline as compared to the same period last year. Group EBITDA reached QAR 217 million for the period, 2% lower than last year. Overall, the last couple of years witnessed significant growth in the overall market due to the FIFA 2022 preparation and project, which ended last December. This fact made the comparison with 2023 a bit difficult, but QIG successfully managed to maintain sustainable profitability margins despite the overall market decline in several sectors. Finally, we focus our efforts to implement a strategy of diversification investments to make more achievements that benefit the group and enable us to play an active role in supporting Qatar's economic vision. Thank you, and I will move to the Arabic text. [Foreign Language] We will now move to your questions, please. Thank you.

[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from Seki Mutukwa from Ashmore Group.

Hopefully, you can hear me. I just wanted to ask a bit about the volumes trends in the overall market, specifically in cement for the year. I think in your presentation, you talked about a 9% drop in 3Q. Just want to check, is that 9% drop during the 9 months? Or just the third quarter year-on-year for the company? And then sort of some color on what's happening in the sector. And then another question just on the marine side, just to sort of get me up to speed on the Inter-Orient, what that specifically relates to and what kind of opportunity that presents for you as a group?

Sure. Regarding the drop, it's just a market fluctuation. And we are, of course, clearly focusing on improving the sales in the next quarter, it's just a normal fluctuation in the market. Regarding the second question, regarding the Marine Inter-Orient, it's a shipping services, and we're hoping to, of course, see any build on that and improve our revenue.

So did that -- when you say a major increase, are you able to maybe give a sense of how much that sort of grew compared to last year or any sense of that business?