Sunbird Tourism plc says it expects its after-tax profit for the year-ended December 31 2022 to jump by 240 percent from K749.4 million achieved during the corresponding period last year.

This means the company is expecting to post a profit after-tax of about K2.54 billion in the year ended December 31 2022.

Sunbird Mount Soche is one of the players in tourism sector

In terms of listing requirements, a listed company is required to publish a trading statement as soon as there is a reasonable degree of certainty that the financial results for the period to be reported upon will differ by at least 20 percent compared to the previous corresponding period.

In a trading statement published on Friday, Sunbird Tourism plc company secretary Allan Hans Muhome, however, indicated that the information on which the trading statement is based has not been reviewed by its editors.

He said: “Sunbird Tourism plc results for the year ended December 31 2022 are expected within the time period as stipulated in the listing requirements of the Malawi Stock Exchange.”

Commenting on the projection, Minority Shareholders Association of Listed Companies secretary general Frank Harawa described the development as positive, saying shareholders are upbeat that they will get dividends.

He said: “It is pleasing to see that our company seems to be back on its feet after the devastating performance recorded at the peak of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020.

‘Our hope is that this will also have an impact on the share price and that we may be able to get dividends this year.”

The hospitality sector was hit hard by the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 where listed firms suffered losses in profits and share prices.

By mid-2020, Malawi lost over K42 billion in revenue through cancellation of confirmed bookings and lost an estimated 300 000 jobs out of which 253 000 were direct jobs following the Covid-19, according to the 2021 Malawi Government Annual Economic Report.

In 2020, Sunbird Tourism plc posted a loss of K1.2 billion from a profit of K2.6 billion in 2019 due to the adverse impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the tourism sector.

The company recovered from the loss and posted an after-tax-profit of K749.4 million last year, thanks to the easing travel restrictions and economic recovery.

In its published financial statements, the hotel chain said this was on account of improved business environment and cost control management strategies it implemented during the year.

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