By Dipo Olowookere
Dangote Cement, the flagship company of Africa’s richest man, Mr Aliko Dangote, on Friday, April 26, 2019, released its financial position as at the end of March 31, 2019.
From the results briefly analysed by Business Post, the leading cement maker in Nigeria recorded decline across key performance indicators.
For instance, the revenue generated by the company in the period under review dropped to N240.2 billion from N242.1 billion and a closer look into the cause of this showed that there was a slight drop in the cement production volume to 5.97 million tonnes in Q1 2019 from 6.04 million tonnes in Q1 2018.
Also, the reduction in the trade cement purchases to 187,000 tonnes in the reviewed period from 233,000 tonnes in the same period of last year had an effect on the revenue generated by the firm.
It further said the production cost of sales increased to N99.5 billion from N97.4 billion, while the gross profit went down to N140.7 billion from N144.8 billion, with the administrative expenses shooting up to N13.2 billion from N11.9 billion.
During the period being reviewed, the selling and distribution expenses rose to N39.6 billion from N29.6 billion, while the profit from operating activities decreased to N88.4 billion from N103.8 billion.
It was a similar situation for the finance income, which reduced to N2.3 billion from N2.6 billion, while the finance costs jumped to N11.7 billion from N10.5 billion.
The profit before tax was not any different from the previous performance indicators as this dropped to N79 billion from N108.4 billion, while the profit after tax declined to N60.3 billion from N72.1 billion.
The poor performance recorded by the company spread to the earnings per share, which closed lower to N3.54 kobo from N4.20 kobo.
