Lafarge, Nestle, Seplat to pay dividends

More companies listed on the Nigerian Exchange Limited have released their final audited report for the 2022 financial year.

Nestle in its financial report announced a final dividend of N36.50 per 50kobo ordinary share. It also earned revenue of N446.8bn, an increase of 27 per cent over the N351.8bn recorded in the previous accounting year.

The multinational also declared N48.96bn profit for the year, marking an increase of 22 per cent over the N40bn recorded in 2021.

For construction company Lafarge, a final dividend of 200 kobo per unit of 50kobo ordinary shares was announced in a notice signed by the General Counsel and Company Secretary, Adewunmi Alode.

The company also declared a revenue of N373.3bn (2021 figure: N293bn) and a profit-after- tax of N53.6bn, which was a 5.2 percent increase over the figure recorded in 2021, which was N51bn.

In his comments in the report, the Chief Executive Officer, Lafarge Africa, Khaled Dokani, lamented the effect of the exchange rate on its growth.

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He said, “In 2022, we recorded 27.3 per cent and 29.3 per cent improvement in net sales and recurring earnings before interest, tax respectively, compared to FY 2021 results. The worsening exchange rate situation led to revaluation losses, thereby constraining our Net Income growth to 5.2 per cent.

Energy company Seplat, in its audited financial report, recorded a final dividend of $0.025 (2.5 cents) per ordinary share of N0.50k each, and a special dividend of $0.05/share (five cents) per ordinary share of N0.50k each.

Seplat recorded a 29.8 per cent increase in its revenue from $733.2m in 2021 to $951.8mn recorded in 2022.

Meanwhile, Lafarge had revealed that a director, Mrs Virginie Darbo, had resigned with effect from 24th February 2023. Darbo was appointed to the board on 11th December 2020 and served as a non-executive director of the company until her resignation.

Darbo has been replaced with Ms Sonal Shrivastava as a non-executive director of the company with effect from 25th February 2023.

Shrivastava is currently the regional chief financial officer at Holcim Group, Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa region, based in Mumbai. At Holcim, she is responsible for the group’s overall finance, accounting and tax functions in the region.