A day after obtaining shareholders’ approval for N40 billion fresh capital via rights issue at an Extraordinary General Meeting (EGM) in Lagos, the management of Guinness Nigeria Plc, on Thursday presented its unaudited result for the half year ended December 31, 2016, showing that bottom-line turned red, despite a 19.37% turnover growth.
Turnover from sales rose by N9.654 billion, which was rubbished by the N15.50 billion or 54.5% rise in cost of sales from N28.439 billion in the corresponding half year of 2015, to N43.94 billion; leaving a gross profit of N15.549 billion, as against the previous N21.397 billion.
‘Other income’ climbed to N370.15 million from N229.875 million; marketing and distribution expenses dropped to N9.941 billion from N13.083 billion; administrative expenses climbed to N6.062 billion from N5.169 billion; resulting in operating loss of N84.668 million from a profit of N3.374 billion.
Although Finance income rose to N1.535 billion; up from N488.925 million; finance costs jumped from N2.211 billion to N6.113 billion, resulting in a 165.74% growth in net finance cost to N4.578 billion from N1.722 billion, following a N3.1 billion FX loss on the company’s foreign currency loans and higher interest expense of N3.0 billion
The management noted the finance expense on loans and borrowings of N1.739 billion, as the biggest finance cost item, rising from the previous N1.317 billion; ahead of the N622.926 million interest expense on overdraft, from N443.874 million. There was also the N622.893 million interest expense on intercompany overdue debts and others, from N443.874 million.
These resulted to a loss before tax of N4.662 billion, from a profit of N1.652 billion; and net profit of N4.667 billion, from the N1.172 billion net profit, which translated to loss per share of 310 kobo; from previous half year’s 78 kobo earnings.