Euro-Nat up 153% to $6M

Press, 21 November 1986, Page 10

Euro-Nat up 153% to $6M

PA Auckland The Auckland-based merchant banker and financier, Euro-National Corporation, Ltd, has reported a September 30 half-year profit of $6,035,000. No tax was payable. The result is up 153 per cent on the $2,385,000 for the previous six months to March 31.

Such a comparison is made because the corresponding period in 1985 covered only the two months of the intitial operation.

The strong profit growth reflects the expanded activities of the Euro-National group, according to the chairman, Mr Rod Petricevic.

“However, much of this work will only begin to show results in our longterm profits.” The group, he says, has staff and business on both sides of the Tasman for long-term growth in Australasia and increasingly internationally. “The period ahead will again be one of exciting growth.”

Euro-National is well on target to achieve its projected $l5 million profit for the year as about one third of the company’s income is expected to be earned in the first half with the balance coming in the second. The directors said it was board policy to pay only an annual dividend at the end of the year.

The result is after deduction of minority interests of $374,000 and inclusion of $52,000 from the group’s share of earnings of associated companies.

Mr Petricevic recalled the establishment of the joint venture investment company with Caxton to invest in strategic holdings in prime equities. However, he said the policy was to invest entrepreneurial merchant banking profits in operations with sound long-term capital and growth potential.

“Our goal,” he said, “is to have 50 per cent of our projected profits coming from subsidiary companies, primarily in the financial sector.”