Photo: Bloomberg
CSE Global has reported EBITDA of $10.0 million for the 1QFY2021 ended March, 22.3% lower than EBITDA of $12.9 million in the 1QFY2020.
The lower EBITDA was in line with the group’s lower revenue, lower gross profits, as well as higher unallocated personnel costs from lower labour utilisation caused by lower business activity.
1QFY2021 revenue fell 15.7% y-o-y to $111.2 million, due to lower revenues in the Americas, offset partly by the growth in Asia Pacific and Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA).
SEE:CSE Global secures $106.2 mil in new orders for 1Q21
The lower revenues in the Americas, which affected revenue for the group’s Energy sector, were mainly due to the slower activities in time and material revenues due to the poor weather in the US.
The lower revenues were also due to a 27.7% plunge y-o-y in the Energy sector, and offset by higher revenues y-o-y of 21.1% and 4.7% for the Infrastructure and Mining & Minerals segments respectively.
Infrastructure revenue was higher mainly driven by higher spending in transport infrastructure and electrical protection for utilities, particularly in Australia, Singapore and the UK.
Revenue for Mining & Minerals improved slightly as heightened demand for commodities continues to support the sector.
For the 1QFY2021, which is traditionally a low season, the group’s order intake fell 16.5% y-o-y to $106.2 million, but improved 7.9% q-o-q from the $98.4 million in the 4QFY2020.
The group’s Energy sector saw a 35.5% decline in new orders of $56.6 million for the 1QFY2021. This was due to the slower than expected start for the year, and further disrupted by the severe winter weather in the US in February.
The Infrastructure sector saw 50.3% y-o-y higher new orders of $38.3 million, due to a stronger pipeline of infrastructure projects across all key geographies such as Australia, Singapore, the UK and the US.
The Mining & Minerals sector saw a 18.7% y-o-y drop in new orders of $11.3 million, which included a greenfield project of $5.1 million to supply two-way radio equipment and solutions in Australia.
The group, for the 1QFY2021, generated a cash inflow from operations of $7.1 million.
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“The current market environment still presents numerous uncertainties going forward: Covid-19 pandemic and global economic outlook. Despite these uncertainties in the coming months, the group’s prospects remain unchanged per the last outlook presented in February 2021 and it remains confident to achieve a satisfactory financial performance in 2021,” says Lim Boon Kheng, CSE’s group managing director.
“Our strategies have been to focus on deepening our presence in our key markets in USA, Australia/New Zealand, Singapore and UK. Going forward, we will continue to focus on these key markets as well as to expand our engineering capabilities and technology solutions to pursue new market opportunities or diversify into new markets (such as renewables and building automation) brought about by the emerging trends towards urbanization, electrification and decarbonisation,” Lim adds.
Shares in CSE closed 0.5 cent lower or 1.0% down at 51.5 cents on May 19.
