BD Building Systems’ profit soars on capital gain from BBS Cables shares

Bangladesh Building Systems Ltd is yet to increase its sales of pre-fabricated steel building structures even compared to the sales in the stressed periods of 2020.

However, selling 25 lakh shares of BBS Cables Ltd, another listed company of BBS Group, helped BD Building Systems book a hefty capital gain in the last week of December.

BD Building Systems' net profit for the October-December quarter soared to over Tk15 crore, from that of Tk1.87 crore in the same period a year ago.

Earlier in the July-September quarter, the company made less than Tk50 lakh in profits from its core business.

The company lost Tk0.22 per share in the 2020-21 financial year and paid 2% cash dividends.

BD Building Systems Company Secretary Mohammad Mohsin told The Business Standard that the demand for the company's products and services have been growing, but it is suffering from supply chain disruption and a skyrocketed cost of intermediary raw materials – steel bars and flat sheets.

"We could sell much more in the last quarter if we had received the imported raw materials in time," he added.

"Cost of raw materials roughly doubled in a year and we need to increase prices in line with our costs," he said further.

He is happy with the robust product demand from the factory builders.

BD Building Systems sold a further 11 lakh BBS Cables shares in the block market of the Chittagong Stock Exchange in the middle of this month, while it was holding over 2.84 crore of the company shares. 

The October-December period's earnings per share that grew from Tk0.11 to Tk0.93 fueled BD Building Systems share price on Thursday.

The stock had no seller even at the top circuit breaker at Tk22. Circuit breakers in the Dhaka and Chattogram bourses did not allow the stock price to rise by more than 10% on a single session.

On the other hand, BBS Cables shares closed almost flat at Tk58.6 each.