By Modupe Gbadeyanka
The fortune of Lagos-based lottery/gaming company, Secure Electronic Technology (SET) Plc has continued to dwindle and urgent efforts are needed to salvage the situation before things get out of hand.
Last week, the company released its financial scorecard for the 2018 financial year and the numbers were not encouraging.
Apart from the fact that the revenue generated by the firm headed by Mr Odunlami Kola-Daisi declined, the company posted a loss before tax as well as a loss after tax.
A brief analysis of the results by Business Post showed that revenue dropped to N4.3 billion in 2018 from N6.6 billion in 2017 despite a reduction in the prize/winnings paid out during the year; N2.6 billion in 2018 FY against N3.9 billion in 2017 FY.
The financial statements further showed that a total of N1.6 billion was paid as commissions to dealers of the firm in contrast to N2.3 billion paid a year earlier.
In the same vein, the amount used as administrative/finance charges expenses was trimmed to N292.5 million from N311.9 million.
As earlier stated, the company declared a loss before tax of N118.2 million versus the profit before tax of N31.1 million in 2017, and a loss after tax of N152.1 million in FY 2018 compared with the profit after tax of N62.6 million in FY 2017.
The situation left the earnings per share of SET Plc and -N2.70k per share versus N1.11k per share a year earlier.
Though the company reduced its salaries and wages to N86.1 million from N89.6 million during the year, the directors’ sitting allowances rose to N8.5 million from N6.7 million.
An analysis of the balance sheet indicated that the total assets of the company declined to N6.4 billion from N6.5 billion, while the total liabilities increased to N768.9 million from N707 million.
As a result of the poor performance during the year, the board did not recommend the payment of dividend to shareholders for the financial year.
Adedapo Adesanya