Malaysian-owned Pestech (Cambodia) Plc sank into the red with $1.3 million net losses, continuing its fall from previous quarters, in the third quarter ended March 31, 2023 (Q3 '23), as opposed to a net profit of $230,000 in 2022.

Its delayed filing with Cambodia Securities Exchange showed that quarterly revenue plunged 65.4 percent to $4.7 million from $13.6 million from the corresponding period a year ago.

The engineering, procurement, construction and commissioning contractor for electrical substation and transmission lines said the “changes in revenue reflected the execution progress of various projects in Cambodia”.

It added that the revenue contraction was mainly due to “lower project progress being recognised by Laos border and Tatay (Phnom Penh) projects” compared to the third quarter in 2022.

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For the cumulative nine-month period ended March 31, 2023 (9M’23), Pestech experienced a net loss of $3.2 million versus a $1.5 million net profit in 9M’22, while revenue fell 62.5 percent to $17.3 million from $46.1 million last year.

Meanwhile, Pestech’s shareholders affirmed the decision to suspend dividend payouts for the financial year ended June 30, 2022, its local bourse filing revealed today.

Accordingly, dividend distributions are subject to several factors, including financial performance, cash flow, retained earnings, and capital expenditure, it has said in its annual reports previously.

Last year, the group reported net profit of 2.5 billion riel - the lowest in the last three years. The net earnings represented a decline of 58.7 percent and 91.6 percent from nearly six billion riel in FY21 and 29.4 billion riel ($7.2 million) in FY20, respectively.

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Since its initial public offering in August 2020, Pestech has distributed a dividend of 0.0065 US cents per share (26.49 riel), totalling $487,000 for FY21 in line with its dividend policy of 30 percent of its net profit that year.

As of March 31, 2023, total assets rose marginally to $296,901 from $295,542 in the same period last year.

At the time of writing, the stock was down 0.33 percent at 3,050 riel with 498 shares traded for a full market capitalisation of 228.6 billion riel (approximately $55.6 million).

sangeetha.amarthalingam@kiripost.com