Cadbury Nigeria to Pay N471m Dividend as Profit Rises to N 823m

Adopting cost curtailment strategy, Cadbury Nigeria Plc significantly grew its bottomline and recommended higher returns to shareholders for its 2018 financial year. According to the audited results for the year ended December 31, 2018, Cadbury recorded a revenue of N35.9 billion, showing an increase of nine per cent from N33 billion in 2017.

Cost of sales went up from N25.644 billion to N28.017 billion in 2018, bringing gross profit to N7.959 billion compared to N7.435 billion in 2017. Selling and distribution expenses reduced from N5.228 billion to N4.706 billion while administrative expenses declined to N1.571 billion compared with N1.594 billion the previous year. Consequently, profit before tax jumped 249 per cent from N350 million to N1.2 billion, while profit after tax rose by 174 per cent to N823 million, from N299 million in 2017. The shareholders are to share N471.428 million as dividend for year, which translates to 25 kobo per share. The dividend is higher than the 16 kobo or N301.512 million The shareholders paid the previous had last year. year hailed the return to profitability and payment of dividend. For instance, Mr. Emmanuel Popoola, said it was very encouraging for the company to post profit and declare dividend despite the challenging operating environment.

He had therefore, urged the company to work harder in order to the ensure years enhanced ahead. dividends in Another shareholder, Mr. Oderinde Taiwo, tasked the company to introduce new products in order to increase its market share and bottom line. He said the company should target products that would address health issues like diabetes. Taiwo also called on the company to look for cheaper means of financing its activities to reduce finance cost, advising the company to consider floating rights issue in the future for fresh capital instead of working for banks.

The Chairman of Cadbury Nigeria, Mr. Atedo Peterside, had said the company was working on some new products, which would be launched at the appropriate time.