Pakistan’s Engro Foods Net Income May Rise 80%, CEO Says

Engro Foods Ltd. (EFOODS), Pakistan’s biggest maker of packaged milk, may record an 80 percent increase in net income this year as demand for dairy products rises, the chief executive officer said.

Profit may cross 1.6 billion rupees ($17 million) in the year ending Dec. 31 compared with 891 million rupees a year earlier, Muhammad Afnan Ahsan said in telephone interview from Karachi yesterday. Net income rose to 531.8 million rupees in the three months ended June 30, from 99.2 million rupees a year ago, the Karachi-based company said in a filing to the stock exchange yesterday.

Engro Foods, which has a 45 percent share of the milk market and a quarter of the ice cream trade, may introduce as many as 13 new products and lines, Muhammad Aliuddin Ansari Chief Executive Officer of Engro Corp., the parent company, said in an interview this month. The food business may become the largest segment by profit and sales and will be the dominant area in the next five years, he said.

Engro Foods, which has climbed threefold this year, compared with a 20 percent gain in the benchmark KSE100 index, increased as much as 1 percent to 67.83 rupees at 9:33 a.m. local time.

To contact the reporter on this story: Farhan Sharif in Karachi at fsharif2@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editor responsible for this story: David Merritt at Dmerritt1@bloomberg.net.