By Dipo Olowookere
After a long wait, the board of Honeywell Flour Mills Plc on Friday released the financial statements of the company for the year ended March 31, 2019.
In the results briefly analysed by Business Post, the flour miller, which has struggled in recent times due to the Apapa traffic gridlock in Lagos, suffered a 98 percent decline in its profit after tax in the period under review.
The PAT, which stood at N4.4 billion in the 2018 fiscal year, went down to N68.4 million in the 2019 financial year.
This was as the profit before tax (PBT) depreciated by 88 percent to N607.8 million from N4.9 billion achieved a year ago.
However, the revenue generated by Honeywell Flour, which also struggles for market share with Dangote Flour and others, improved by 4 percent in 2019 to N74.4 billion from N71.5 billion in 2018.
According to the firm, the cost of sales during the year increased to N62.9 billion from N55.4 billion, while the selling and distribution expenses rose to N6.1 billion from N2.1 billion, with the administrative expenses jumping to N2.3 billion from N2.1 billion.
In the year, the company said it netted a gross profit of N11.5 billion compared with N16.1 billion of the previous year, while the other income appreciated to N751.5 million from N202.2 million.
It further said finance cost gulped N3.3 billion against N4.6 billion of the previous financial year.
An analysis of its balance sheet showed that the total assets of the company rose to N137.5 billion from N124.8 billion, while the total liabilities increased to N80.8 billion from N68.4 billion, with the shareholders’ fund rising to N56.7 billion from N56.4 billion.
