By Dipo Olowookere
The board of GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) Nigeria Plc has proposed the payment of 55 kobo dividend to shareholders for the 2019 financial year.
According to a notice from the healthcare firm, the cash reward is subject to appropriate withholding tax of 10 percent and approval at the Annual General Meeting (AGM).
It further said the dividend would be only be paid to shareholders whose names appear on the register of members as the close of business on June 22, 2020.
Thereafter, the register of shareholders will be closed from Tuesday, June 23, 2020 to Thursday, July 2, 2020 (both dates inclusive) in preparation of the payment on July 24, 2020 to investors, who have completed the e-dividend registration and mandated the registrar to pay their dividends directly into their bank accounts.
The payment will come a day after the company’s AGM fixed for Thursday, July 23, 2020 at the GSK House on 1, Industrial Avenue, Ilupeju, Lagos.
In the 2019 accounting year, GSK improved its revenue 13.0 percent to N20.8 billion from N18.4 billion, buoyed mainly from improvement in its pharmaceutical segment. The business generated N14.5 billion in the reporting year compared with N12.0 billion in the prior year.
However, its consumer healthcare segment recorded a slump in turnover for the year to N6.3 billion from N6.5 billion in the comparative year of 2018.
In the year under review, GSK said its cost of sales gulped N14.7 billion, higher than N12.5 billion in 2018 due to increase in the materials used for production, with the gross profit increasing to N6.1 billion from N5.9 billion.
An analysis of the results by Business Post showed that in the year, investment income, mainly from interest earned from short-term deposits, reduced to N227.6 million from N380.5 million.
Selling and distribution costs, according to the company, increased to N3.3 billion in the year from N3.1 billion in 2018, while administrative expenses decreased to N1.9 billion from N2.3 billion as a result of a slash in the wages and salaries of workers to N1.4 billion from N1.6 billion.
According to GSK, after all its expenses, it was left with a profit before tax of N1.2 billion, same as the previous year, while the post-tax profit ended at N917.1 million, higher than the N617.6 million recorded in the prior financial year. This was because of the lower tax paid in the year under consideration; N440.2 million versus N461.0 million.
Adedapo Adesanya