After solid 2025, revenues at Mirpurkhas Sugar Mills faces rough start to the year

Mirpurkhas Sugar Mills’ latest numbers are a reminder that, in Pakistan’s sugar business, a “good year” is often best defined as less bad than the last one – and even that can prove fleeting.

For the year ended September 30, 2025 (FY25), the mill booked sales of about Rs12.6 billion, up from roughly Rs12.0 billion the year before, while the loss after tax narrowed sharply to about Rs251m (versus a loss exceeding Rs2.2 billion in FY24). The improvement was large enough to look like a turnaround on a chart – and it helped explain why the company’s own corporate briefing materials portrayed FY25 as a reset year, even as the bottom line remained in the red.

But the first quarter of the new year landed with a thud. In the quarter ended December 31, 2025 (1QFY26), turnover fell to Rs2.27 billion, down from Rs3.19 billion in the same quarter a year earlier, while the loss after tax widened to Rs173 million from Rs60 million – a deterioration that effectively nearly tripled the quarterly loss.

Shareholders looking for a consolation cheque did not get one. Alongside the results, the board disclosed no cash dividend, no bonus shares, and no right shares for the quarter. That is not shocking – loss-making companies seldom distribute cash – but it matters because it frames the quarter as more than a soft patch: it pushes any “back-to-dividends” narrative further out.

The broad arc, then, is clear: FY25 looked like stabilisation; 1QFY26 looked like relapse. The more interesting question is why.