Guinness Nigeria has announced its results for the half-year ended 31 December 2016 in its results released through a statement on the Nigerian Stock Exchange, shows that the company grew its topline by 19% year-on-year.
Managing Director/CEO, Guinness Nigeria Plc, Mr. Peter Ndegwa, who spoke on the results, said there are many bright spots for the company but that the challenging economic environment and high finance charges impacted results.
“We now have both International Premium Spirits (IPS) and locally manufactured mainstream spirits within our portfolio and these contributed to revenue growth for the half year.”
“Our accessible beer brands also continue to grow strongly. Our productivity agenda continues to gain momentum enabling us to keep our administrative and distribution costs under control while optimizing our investments to support our brands.”
“The unrealised foreign exchange losses during the half year meant that our net finance cost grew by 166%. As a result of the high input costs (in part driven by FX) and the FX impact on financing costs, we recorded a Loss Before Tax of N4.6 billion.”
Mr. Babatunde Savage, Chairman of the Board of Guinness Nigeria Plc remarked: “We remain optimistic about the future of the company despite the prevailing challenging operating environment. We are confident that the steps we are taking to steer the business through these difficult times – including a comprehensive review of our capital structure, the expansion of our brand portfolio and our continued focus on reducing operating costs, will sustain the momentum we have in top-line growth and bottom line recovery.”
The company, this week, held an Extraordinary General Meeting (EGM) of its shareholders where it received approval for a Rights Issue to raise up to N40 billion, subject to the approval of the regulatory authorities.
The approval set the company on course to raise funds it hopes to use to optimise its balance sheet to improve its financial and operational flexibility.
