Unilever Nigeria Plc has assured shareholders of its commitment to good corporate governance to drive sustainability and efficiency across the Company’s operations. The leading consumer goods producer recorded turnover of N70.5 billion for the financial year ended December 2021. Unilever’s results for the year under review shows considerable progress across all indices, owing to improved operational performance and greater investment in the supply and distribution network, which resulted in high volume.
Addressing shareholders at the 97th Annual General Meeting of the Company, Chairman of the Board, Nnaemeka Achebe commended the shareholders for their trust and loyalty to the company, despite the challenging business environment in the last two years. At the meeting, the board got approval of shareholders to pay dividend of 50kobo per share.
The Company’s financial report shows revenue from its continuing operations increased by 35 percent to N70.5billion from N52.2billion the previous year. Profit before tax from its continuing operations was N1.9billion, compared to a loss of N4.5billion in 2020. Profit after tax from its continuing operations was N0.7 billion, up from a loss of N3.8 billion in the previous year.
Speaking on the results, Achebe said, “Despite the challenges faced, our operational discipline on secondary sales, trade debt, overdue, and cash management has driven the right kind of growth in 2021 as we continued to see growth coming back to the business.”
Read also: MTN dividend pay lures young investors
He added that, the management will maintain this strategic approach to the company’s operations to further achieve profitability and long-term growth.
In his remarks, Carl Cruz, the Managing Director of Unilever Nigeria Plc. stated that the considerable improvement in the 2021 financial statements is a direct outcome of the Company’s management and staff’s renewed commitment to reaching new heights.
Cruz said, “Unilever Nigeria Plc’s increased focus on business fundamentals such as reinvesting in the brands, enhancing secondary sales, and ensuring adequate liquidity while tightening controls on cost in 2020, resulted in better operational discipline and governance of the business in 2021. We prioritized serving the mainstream consumer, ensuring that we met their needs.”
“We saw Topline growth of 35percent over last year and a Consistent quarter-on-quarter average growth of 5percent. The bottom line grew by N7.4billion from a loss of N4billion in 2020. Our active management of cost inflation benefitted our P&L by 800bps improvement on gross margin. Cash managed properly such that we are declaring dividends after two years at 50kobo per share. Cash generated in the year at N18.8billion from N1.2billion in 2020,” he said.
Unilever Nigeria will continue to monitor the business environment and respond appropriately to the challenges with a view to providing solutions through its brands and operations. As the world gradually makes return to normalcy post COVID, the AGM was by proxy with shareholders and the public attending online.
