New Vision Printing and Publishing Company returned to profitability in the second half of 2021 as contracts from the government to publish educational materials and textbooks boosted revenue.
The government-controlled company on Tuesday said it made a net profit of Shs396.5m ($112,409), compared with a loss of Shs1.4bn in the same period in 2020. Revenues rose 52.5 per cent to Shs61bn, reversing the 14 per cent decline reported in the previous period.
New Vision’s publishing business contributed the most to the increase in revenue, helped by “publishing orders for ministry of education home schooling and upper primary textbooks printed and distributed in the period.”
That was also likely boosted by a controversial directive by the president, given in September 2021, that government ministries, departments, and agencies prioritise printing contracts to the group. The government has a controlling stake in the publishing group, the country’s largest, through the ministry of finance, planning and economic development which owns 53.3 per cent of its shares.
Gross profits were 19 per cent higher than a year ago at Shs11.3bn; in 2020 they fell by Shs2.6bn. The company’s cost of sales jumped 62.9 per cent “due to [the] cost of printing and distributing education[al] materials.”
The company also saw a turnabout in advertising revenue which rose 9.8 per cent, down from the 20.6 per cent drop in the second half of 2020. This was due to a rebound in print and television advertising, while radio advertising revenue also increased. However, circulation revenue dropped further, while commercial printing revenue also reduced after registering strong growth in 2020.
“Business slowly picked up with the partial opening of the economy from the Covid-19 pandemic lockdown,” said the publisher in a statement. It added that “newspaper circulation and commercial printing activities are picking up.”
New Vision omitted both its sales costs and operational expenses from the financial statement.
The company said it borrowed Shs29.2bn from Stanbic Bank Uganda to “facilitate the printing of educational materials.” By the end of 2021, it had paid Shs7.8bn of the one-year loan.
