The ANSA McAL group of com­pa­nies record­ed rev­enue of $1.445 bil­lion for the three months end­ed March 31, 2022.

This was an in­crease of $42 mil­lion or three per cent com­pared to the same pe­ri­od last year.

“With the lift­ing of re­stric­tions in all mar­kets and the re­turn to pre-pan­dem­ic ac­tiv­i­ties, most of the group’s sub­stan­tive op­er­a­tions are do­ing well,” the group’s ex­ec­u­tive chair­man A Nor­man Sab­ga stat­ed.

“Rev­enue in our bev­er­age sec­tor is trend­ing to­ward pre-pan­dem­ic lev­els and our man­u­fac­tur­ing, con­struc­tion and dis­tri­b­u­tion busi­ness­es are all ex­hibit­ing pos­i­tive per­for­mance,” Sab­ga stat­ed.

The group’s to­tal as­sets grew by six per cent to $17.550 bil­lion.

And the gear­ing ra­tio was re­duced to 8.8 per cent.

Sab­ga said the group’s re­sults were im­pact­ed dur­ing the quar­ter by non-cash mark to mar­ket loss­es in the glob­al in­vest­ment port­fo­lios with­in its bank­ing and in­sur­ance seg­ment.

“Trig­gered by the war in Ukraine, in­fla­tion­ary pres­sures and in­creas­ing in­ter­est rates glob­al­ly, all ma­jor in­ter­na­tion­al in­vest­ment as­set class­es ex­pe­ri­enced down­ward pres­sure dur­ing the first quar­ter of 2022,” Sab­ga stat­ed.

“The re­duc­tion in the val­u­a­tion of these in­vest­ments was the main con­trib­u­tor to the down­ward vari­ance in the group’s prof­it be­fore tax to $79 mil­lion and earn­ings per share to $0.22,” he said.

Sab­ga said nonethe­less as these port­fo­lios are long-term in­vest­ments and are well po­si­tioned to be re­silient over time, it is ex­pect­ed that these in­vest­ment val­u­a­tions will re­cov­er as the mar­kets nor­malise.

“The core busi­ness­es with the bank­ing and in­sur­ance seg­ment re­main strong due to the sol­id and grow­ing cus­tomer base, ro­bust bal­ance sheet and healthy cap­i­tal base,” he stat­ed.

Sab­ga said in­creased rev­enue cou­pled with ex­cel­lent man­age­ment of in­ven­to­ry and re­ceiv­ables has yield­ed im­proved cash flows from op­er­at­ing ac­tiv­i­ties of $337 mil­lion.

“While the in­vest­ment mar­kets are ex­pect­ed to con­tin­ue to re­flect volatil­i­ty dur­ing the year, the group’s fi­nan­cial po­si­tion is strong. We are con­fi­dent of be­ing able to with­stand the cur­rent head­winds as we con­tin­ue to in­vest in re­gion­al and glob­al ex­pan­sion while en­sur­ing a sus­tain­able fu­ture as we in­spire bet­ter choic­es for a bet­ter world,” he stat­ed.