Eterna Plc Shareholders Approve Dividend, Commend Board, Management

Shareholders of Eterna Plc, a petroleum products marketing company, have hailed the performance of the company and payment of dividend for the year ended December 31, 2016.

The shareholders, who spoke at the 24thannual general meeting of the company in Lagos said Eterna Plc has been recording improvement and paying rewarding investors with dividends.

“The present management and board of the company have really done a good job by not only improving on the performance but have also fulfilled the promise to shareholders of consistent returns.

We commend you and urge you to keep it up, while we will continue to support you,” a shareholder, Mr. Boniface Okezie said.

The Chairman of Eterna Plc, Alhaji Lamis Dikko told the shareholders that in keeping with their promise, the board was pleased to recommend a dividend of 30 kobo per share.

“The dividend represents a 20 per cent increase from the dividend paid by our company in 2015.

We continue to appreciate your trust in our ability to keep promises that we have made to you, our valued shareholders,” he said.

Dikko said the company achieved consolidated revenue of N106.9 billion in 2016, compared with 92.06 billion in 2015.

“We achieved 221 per cent increase in operating profits despite 16 per cent increase in our turnover and 178 per cent increase gross profits.

This commendable performance is directly attributable to adoption of efficient processes in delivering our products and services and our ability to control costs despite the high levels of inflation prevalent in the country,” he said.

The chairman explained that profit before tax increased by 84 per cent from N1.3 billion in 2015 to N2.4 billion in 2016, while profit after tax stood at N1.477 billion, as against N1.278 billion in 2015.

Dikko said he was pleased with the performance of the company in 2016, adding that he had no doubt that it would perform even better in subsequent years.