Sana Iqbal

Business correspondent. Covers listed companies, deals and capital markets. Based in Karachi.

Cement is running hot while construction permits stay flat

Despatch figures and permit filings have moved in opposite directions since April. Exporters explain the gap.

Margin compression arrived a quarter later than most analysts had modelled.

Discount-led growth has given way to a fight over basket size, and the numbers are finally public.

Plants that ran at half capacity through June are hiring back line staff, though supplier payments still lag.

Six companies withdrew filings this year. Their finance chiefs point to the same three costs, and none of them is the fee schedule.

Working capital is being pushed down the chain, and the smallest suppliers have the least room to absorb it.

Underwriters have repriced a category that had been quietly mispriced for years.

A single annexe in the revised schedule changes the calculation for anyone running a night shift.

The separation has been discussed for years. The trigger was a financing covenant.