By Dipo Olowookere
The recently-listed BUA Foods Plc on Monday released its financial statements for the first nine months of its 2021 fiscal year ended September 30.
Details of the result filed to the Nigerian Exchange (NGX) Limited showed that the BUA Foods 9-month profit increased to N16.6 billion from N15.5 billion in the corresponding period of 2020, though the profit netted in the quarter, between July and September, went down to N4.6 billion from N6.1 billion in the same quarter of the preceding year.
Business Post observed that in the nine-month period under review, the company cut down its administrative expenses to N1.4 billion from N2.4 billion and this was mainly due to a slice in the staff welfare & training, electricity, newspaper & periodicals, donations, legal & professional, ITF expenses, diesel & fuel, depreciation and others.
The lower operating costs supported the increase in the operating profit of BUA Foods in the first nine months of last year, which stood at N21.3 billion compared with the N19.0 billion reported in the same period of 2020.
However, the other income line of the financial statements went down to N1.2 billion from N7.9 billion while the finance charges rose to N5.8 billion from N3.4 billion.
As for the top line of the results, the company generated total revenue of N79.7 billion compared with N74.6 billion achieved in the first nine months of the preceding year.
The increase was largely due to the improvement in the earnings from the sales of non-fortified sugar, which raked N57.5 billion versus N22.8 billion in the corresponding period of 2020.
This made up for the decline in the revenue generated from the sales of its fortified sugar (N22.0 billion in Q3 of 2021 versus N51.7 billion in Q3 of 2020), though revenue from the sales of Molasses grew to N221.7 million from N94.1 million.
The results also showed that the cost of sales gulped N57.1 billion as against the N53.2 billion recorded in 2020, while the gross profit rose to N22.6 billion from N21.4 billion.
