Income tax expenses shot up 76 percent to 710 million rupees during the quarter under review.
Analysts said it appeared that a steep rise in taxation and sharply higher funding costs were the main reason behind the 51 percent rise in December quarter operating profit translating to only a one percent rise in net profit.
Group net profit for the nine months ending December 2007 were up 12 percent to 2.8 billion rupees compared with the same period last year. Group turnover was up almost 19 percent to 40.2 billion rupees.
At company level, Distilleries Company of Sri Lanka, whose main business is making and marketing liquor products, said net profit was up 5.1 percent to 488 million rupees in the December quarter with revenue up 18.2 percent to 8.2 billion rupees.
For the nine months, net profit at company level was up 8.1 percent to 1.4 billion rupees while revenue went up 13.6 percent to almost 23 billion rupees.
The Distilleries group has grown into a group of companies that is in insurance, telecom, tea and rubber and also provides tourism, cargo logistics, infrastructure services.
The group includes telco Lanka Bell, Sri Lanka Insurance, Apollo Hospital and two plantations firms, Balangoda and Madulsima.
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