Guinness Nigeria posts first loss in 30 years

Guinness Nigeria Plc has announced a financial result of N102 billion revenue for the period ended June 30, 2016.

The company while making the announcement also declared an overall Loss After Tax of N2 billion when compared to the same period last year.

The Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer of Guinness Nigeria, Peter Ndegwa, said that the combination of a tough economic environment and challenges with naira devaluation had a significant impact on the company’s overall performance.

“Our performance this year was impacted by two major factors, one being the very tough economic challenges around consumer spending, driving consumer preferences towards value brands across the sector, the other, and more significant factor being the effect of FX policy and the devaluation of the Naira,” said Ndegwa.

“When you take out the impact of the latter, our underlying performance for the year was broadly in line with the prior year in spite of the pressure on the top line.”

This year’s report was the company’s first set of results combining sales from both beer as well as International Premium Spirits (IPS) like Johnnie Walker and Baileys, following its acquisition of distribution rights from its parent company, Diageo, in January this year.

Babatunde Savage, Chairman, Guinness Nigeria Plc, said despite the continuing deterioration in the operating environment, the Board was pleased with the growth with the Guinness FES and Malta Guinness brands.

“We now have a strong participation in the growing value segment of the market through Satzenbrau and Dubic,” said Mr. Savage.

“We have also started to see early signs that our decisions to acquire the distribution rights in Nigeria to the International Premium Spirits brands of Diageo and to invest in local capacity for spirits manufacturing are the right ones for the business.”