Financial Times

Lower finance costs strengthen Durdans bottom line
Ceylon Hospitals Ltd (CHL), the parent company of Durdans Hospital and its subsidiary, Durdans Heart Surgical Centre (Pvt) Limited, has reported a 13 percent increase in pre-tax profit to Rs 75 million.

"The main contributory factor to this satisfactory performance can be attributed to the reduction of interest outlay for the last four months of the accounting period," chairman Ajith Tudawe said.

"Throughout the year, we established and employed an organizational change, a remodeling of the capital structure which saw finance costs decrease by Rs 11 million, representing a 37 percent decline from the previous year and the adoption of careful work-study and methods study techniques.

"And given the nature of our business, which is primarily a service-oriented one based on human relations, we also placed a lot of emphasis on developing our human capital."

Consolidated turnover increased by nearly Rs 100 million to Rs 696 million for the year ended March 31, 2004. Net profit after taxation was Rs 72.352 million, while earnings per share amounted to Rs 4.56.

Durdans also announced a 14 percent final dividend for the financial year. Durdans has a current capacity to accommodate 125 indoor patients and in the last year the hospital has maintained a 98 percent average occupancy level.

Tudawe said the company is in the process of implementing a three tier restructuring and expansion plan, with Phase I of the expansion project which commenced in June this year, seeing the birth of a facility comprising 27 rooms and an eight bed High Dependency Unit.

Back to Business