Lafarge Africa Back in Profit, Grows PAT by 131% in H1’19 to N9bn

July 23, 2019
lafarge africa shareholders

By Dipo Olowookere

Slowdown in market trends influenced by delays in the new cabinet nomination post February general elections in Nigeria negatively impacted on the revenue generated in the first half of this year by a leading Sub-Saharan Africa building materials company, Lafarge Africa, a subsidiary of LafargeHolcim, a world leader in building materials.

In the financial statements of the company released yesterday, the revenue went down by 1.23 percent to N160.3 billion from N162.3 billion, while the cost of sales declined to N119.6 billion from N123.3 billion.

In H1 2019, the cement firm said it spent N2.5 billion on selling and marketing expenses compared with the N2.8 billion it used in the same period of last year.

In the same period under review, the company used N15.9 billion for administrative expenses against N20 billion in the first six months of last year.

However, the gross profit realized rose to N40.8 billion from N39 billion, while other income depreciated to N39 million from N106.6 million, with the operating profit growing to N22.4 billion from N16.3 billion.

In H1 2019, Lafarge Africa said its finance income dropped to N989.7 million from N1 billion in H1 2018, while the finance costs went down to N14.1 billion from N23.7 billion.

For the Operating EBITDA before the IFRS, it closed at N32.2 billion in H1 2019 compared with the N27.7 billion in H1 2018.

A look at the bottom-line of the cement maker in the first half of the year showed an improvement as the company posted a profit before tax of N9.3 billion against the loss before tax of N6.4 billion in H1 2018.

In the same vein, the firm declared a profit after tax of N9 billion in contrast to a loss after tax of N3.9 billion in the corresponding period of last year.

Commenting on the results, CEO of Lafarge Africa, Mr Michel Puchercos, stated that, “Our Strategy 2022, building for growth, in Nigeria is delivering the expected results with strong volume growth, considerable EBITDA improvement, robust net income and operating cash flow development.

“We continue to deliver strong margins as a result of our turnaround and cost reduction strategy in Q2 with improvement in our commercial transformation, logistics performance, and industrial and energy efficiencies.

“Our ambition is to continue the acceleration of growth and earnings in 2019. South Africa continued the turnaround plan with significant EBITDA and operating profit improvement in Q2 2019 compared to prior year.”

Dipo Olowookere

Dipo Olowookere is a journalist based in Nigeria that has passion for reporting business news stories. At his leisure time, he watches football and supports 3SC of Ibadan.

Mr Olowookere can be reached via [email protected]

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