Around 60% of the listed textile companies registered profits in the fourth quarter this year, shrugging off recent political unrest and industrial accidents.
Profits by the rest of the companies, mostly export-oriented ones, declined for the first time in recent years.
Investors pulled funds from the poor-performing textile stocks, reflecting in sharpest decline in volume of trade from October last year till yesterday.
However, volume of trade in terms of value sharply declined to 7% from 17% of the total trade at the Dhaka Stock Exchange (DE) during the period, according to BRAC-EPL, a leading brokerage firm.
However, textile index rose more than 170 points in the last five months as points were added by two new listed companies and the market capitalisation increased slightly to 3.81% as of yesterday from 3.63% on October 1 last year.
Of the 32 textile companies listed with the bourses, 23 disclosed their financial reports of fourth quarter (Q4) from October through December this year.
Companies those made profits more than 100% in Q4 are Maksons Spinning Mills, Metro Spinning, Desh Garments, Muzzafar Hussain Spinning Mills, Delta Spinning, Rahim Textile and Tallu Spinning.
Companies those made profits between 50% and 100% are Paramount Textile and Stylecraft and companies those posted marginal profits included Anlima Yarn, Modern Dyeing, Prime Textile and Saiham Textile.
Profits of ten companies dropped for the first time in recent years.
Alltex Industries was the hardest-hit one as in Q4 this year it posted losses of Tk70 lakh, a steepest drop of 249% from the same period a year earlier, according to the company’s financial statements.
Envoy Textiles Limited came second as its profits during the period stood at Tk3.9 crore, down over 62% from the same period a year ago, says its latest financial statements.
“Profit dipped due to the recent political unrest and image crisis in the overseas countries due to the recent industrial accidents,” said Abdus Salam Murshedy, managing director of Envoy Textiles Limited.
“We will come back to the satisfactory level as we have already started our second unit of production, which is expected to double the output. But, it might take time to be able to reach the level of profits as seen in the past.”
The country witnessed a series of shutdowns and strikes last year till the national election held on January 5, making all walks life and the economy almost standstill.
On 24 last year, Rana Plaza, an eight-story commercial building, collapsed in Savar, killing more than 1,100 people. It is considered to be the deadliest garment-factory accident in history as well as the deadliest accidental structural failure in modern human history.
Alltex and Envoy were followed by Zahin Textile, Mithun Knitting, Al-haj Textile, Dacca Dyeing, Malek Spinning, HR Textile, Apex Spinning and Dulamia Cotton.
President of Bangladesh Garments Manufactures and Exporters Association Atiqul Islam said most of the export oriented textile companies faced profit erosion because of the recent political unrest as they missed to ship goods during the shutdowns.
“But profits of companies supplying locally is relatively lower than that of the export-oriented ones,” he said.
Bangladesh, the second largest garment exporter behind China, exported knitwear items worth $7bn and woven items $7.18bn, registering year-on-year growth of 18% and 17% in July-January period of the current fiscal year, according to Export Promotion Bureau data.