• Tuesday, November 05, 2024
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Champions Breweries to fix free float deficiency with public offer

Champions Breweries to fix free float deficiency with public offer

Champion Breweries is set to open a public offering to raise funds for its smooth operations.

This necessitated the company’s ‘Fact Behind the Figures’ presentation at the NGX on Tuesday. It was part of the attempt by the new core shareholder, EnjoyCorp, to hit the ground running.

During the presentation, certain facts and figures were spotlighted.

Champion Breweries Plc was the only brewer to post a profit during the financial year.

Presently, the company operates on a regional scale, with its major markets being Akwa Ibom, Imo, Enugu, and Cross River State. However, despite being a smaller brand, it is slowly establishing its presence. It posted a N12.7 billion revenue in 2023, marking a marginal 3 percent growth from the N12.29 billion revenue posted in FY 2022.

The company posted a net profit of N370 million during the financial year. However, this figure represented a 74 percent decline from the N1.41 billion recorded in FY 2022. Net profit margin also declined to 3 percent, from 11 percent in the previous fiscal year. However, Champion Breweries was above its contemporaries who posted losses during the financial year.

In term of return-on-equity (ROE), Champion Breweries was more efficient with respect to equity turnover, with an ROE of 3 percent, above all its peers which posted negative ROEs for FY 2023.

On the question of how Champion Breweries pulled off profitability in 2023, Inalegwu Adoga, the company’s managing director, attributed it to “raw materials hedging.”

He noted, “We hedged on very key input materials in the course of 2023.”

According to Inalegwu, the company had anticipated price instability that year and, in February 2023, took action by securing a supply arrangement to ensure that raw sorghum, its primary input, was covered for the remainder of the year.

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