By Dipo Olowookere
Things were again not too pleasant for Nigerian Breweries Plc in the first quarter of this year if the company’s financial statements for the period are anything to take seriously.
For example, the revenue generated by the brewery giant reduced marginally to N83.2 billion from N83.3 billion in the first quarter of last year.
Also, the cost of sales slightly went up to N48.3 billion from N48.2 billion, while the gross profit declined to N34.9 billion from N35.1 billion.
However, the other income went up to N181.4 million from N157.1 million, with the marketing and distribution expenses rising to N18.8 billion from N16.6 billion, while the administrative expenses increased to N5.3 billion from N4.6 billion.
Nigerian Breweries said it had N10.9 billion from results from operating activities in the first three months of 2020, lower than N14.1 billion recorded in the first three months of 2019.
The firm said the amount generated from finance income dropped to N7.9 million from N9.4 million, while the finance costs rose to N2.7 billion from N2.6 billion.
In the first quarter of this year, Nigerian Breweries recorded a decline in its profit before tax, dropping to N8.3 billion from N11.5 billion. In the same vein, the profit after tax fell to N5.5 billion from N8.0 billion, representing a 31.3 percent fall.
In the results, the beer maker said its earnings per share (EPS) went down to 69 kobo from N1 in Q1 2019.
Adedapo Adesanya