Guinness rakes ₦7.9 billion profit in nine months

Guinness Nigeria Plc has witnessed considerable improvement in its bottom-line in the third quarter, recovering from a loss position to a pre-tax profit of ₦7.89 billion within the nine-month period.

Key extracts of the interim report and accounts of Guinness Nigeria for the nine-month period ended March 31, 2018, showed a well-rounded performance with significant growths in sales and profitability.

Turnover rose by 17 per cent to ₦105.48 billion by March 2018 compared with N89.87 billion recorded by March 2017. Gross profit rose from ₦31.25 billion in 2017 to ₦35.59 billion in 2018. Operating profit doubled from ₦4.19 billion to ₦10.68 billion. From a pre-tax loss of ₦2.46 billion by March 2017, the company regained profitability with a pre-tax profit of ₦7.89 billion by March 2018. After taxes, net profit stood at ₦5.09 billion in 2018 as against net loss of ₦2.56 billion in comparable period of 2017. Earnings per share turned positive at ₦2.32 by March 2018 as against loss per share of ₦1.70 by March 2017. The results also showed a 14 per cent growth in volume when compared to the same period last year.

Managing Director, Guinness Nigeria, Mr Peter Ndegwa said the third quarter performance has shown the resilience of the company’s strategy as turnover for the period was driven mainly by volume growth.

According to him, the company has continued the robust implementation of its strategy around its product portfolio, offering Nigerians quality brands across a broad range of occasions, from non-alcoholic to beer and spirits.

“We also continued to focus on driving our productivity agenda, improving effectiveness and delivering efficiencies across our operations, which partially mitigated the impact of high input inflation in the quarter,” Ndegwa said.

He pointed out that administrative expenses was reduced by 25 per cent as a result of an increased focus on cost management while distribution expenses reduced by 11 per cent driven by productivity initiatives such as improved truck utilisation and better truck turnaround.

He added that marketing expenses increased by 16 per cent as Guinness Nigeria continued to invest behind its brands over the period.

“We believe that our strategy and particularly the commercial execution are now yielding the desired outcomes. We will continue to focus on our strategy to deliver an improved performance in a challenging operating environment compounded by impending significant increases in taxes,” Ndegwa added.

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