Citadel Capital, a leading investment company in Africa and the Middle East, has reported a standalone net profit of EGP10.5 million ($1.48 million) in 2013 when compared to a net loss of EGP66.4 million the previous year.

Announcing the financial results, the Egypt-based company said its revenues soared to EGP126.6 million with a 1.9 per cent year-on-year growth for financial year 2013.
 
The fourth quarter results mark the fourth consecutive quarter of profitability for Citadel Capital, driven by steady advisory fees, net financing gains and proceeds from dividends, said a senior official.
 
“Prudent management mitigated risk across the board in 2013 at Citadel Capital as a standalone entity and across our portfolio of core and non-core investments,” remarked Citadel Capital chairman and founder Ahmed Heikal.

“The result has been improving financial performance, particular at the Citadel Capital standalone level and the level of our operational core platforms. We look forward to the successful conclusion of the capital increase in late March, which will propel us well down the road in our transformation into an investment company,” he said.
 
The release of the standalone figure comes as the firm prepares for the second and final round of subscriptions to the capital increase.
The quarter-on-quarter, revenues rose 59.8 per cent on stable advisory fees and EGP 31.2 million in dividend proceeds from a fully-owned Citadel Capital subsidiary.

On a full-year basis, revenues rose 1.9 per cent y-o-y to EGP 126.6 million, despite the impact of non-recurring advisory fees generated in 1H12 on additional fees related to Orient.

Citadel Capital disclosed earlier this month that it had completed its planned purchases of additional stakes in platform companies totaling approximately EGP 3.5 billion as part of its ongoing transformation into an investment company that will hold majority stakes in its subsidiaries in five core industries: energy, transportation, agrifoods, mining and cement.

The Citadel Capital said its board of directors has called for a shareholder meeting on March 17 to approve mechanism of capitalizing liabilities, thus putting capital increase on track to close by the end of the month.-TradeArabia News Service