KAMPALA (Reuters) - Ugandan power distributor Umeme posted on Monday a 55 percent jump in first half pretax profit, helped by rising power revenues and a slight drop in power losses.
The company, which is also listed on the Nairobi Securities Exchange in neighbouring Kenya, said it was also in negotiations for $170 million in long term funds for a $440 million package of capital investments for the 2013-2018 period.
Umeme said its pretax profit rose to 68 billion shillings from 43.9 billion shillings earned in the six months ended June 2012, while revenues were up 18 percent to 467 billion shillings.
"The increase is primarily attributed to reduction in energy losses and investments in the distribution system," Umeme said, adding that its basic earnings per share jumped to 29 shillings from 23 shillings.
It said its 2013-2018 capital investments would include refurbishing and expanding its distribution network, safety, reduction of energy losses, and the roll out of a prepaid metering system.
The firm aims to cut energy losses during distribution to an agreed regulatory target of 23 percent of energy purchased from the transmission company this year from 26.1 percent in 2012.
Energy can be lost via the distribution network and illegal connections.
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