Staff Reporter
Karachi
K-Electric (KE) held its 109th Annual General Meeting (AGM) – FY 2019 in Karachi. With the on-going COVID-19 pandemic, the utility’s AGM was hosted virtually for the first time. The meeting was chaired by Riyadh S.A.A Edrees, Chairman of the KE Board, with Moonis Alvi, CEO KE also in attendance, along with Aamir Ghaziani, CFO; Rizwan Dalia, Company Secretary & CPO and other members of the Board and KE leadership. Shareholders were briefed about improvements in certain key operational indicators such as sent-out growth and decrease in Transmission and Distribution (T&D) losses.
KE’s balance sheet continued to grow, with total assets increasing to around PKR 599 billion in FY 2019, compared to PKR 474 billion in FY 2018 because of the Company’s continued investment to meet the city’s growing power needs. Shareholders were told about prevailing challenges such as the circular debt, which remains a key concern and a severe drain on cash flow, as well as the Company’s negative operating cash flow, increased finance cost, enhanced bank borrowings and distressed working capital situation due to accumulation of government receivables.
This, coupled with exchange losses due to significant devaluation of PKR during FY 2019, has impacted profit before tax of the company which fell from PKR 13.7 billion to PKR 8.9 billion year-over-year.
