Nigerian Breweries, 56% owned by international brewery group Heineken, is to be monitored this week on the Nigerian stock exchange. The company ended this week with a 3.75% rise on the exchange but it later published a not so positive 2018 results.  

Its turnover that year was NGN350.3 billion ($960 million), representing a 4.1% decrease compared with the 2017 results when it is adjusted to the new IFRS 15 accounting standard. Nigerian Breweries explains that this new standard has a different approach for calculation.

This led to an increase by NGN21.4 billion of the initial 2017 turnover (that was finally NGN365.8 billion against NGN344.5 billion initially).

The logical outcome is a decrease by 35.4% and 41.1% of its operating income and net profit respectively despite reduced expenses.

For shareholders, the final dividend for the 2018 fiscal year will be NGN1.83 per share, 41.5% lower than the NGN3.13 received for the 2017 fiscal year.

Idriss Linge