PZ Cussons declares N3.2 billion dividend

PZ Cussons Nigeria Plc, has approved a total dividend payout of N3.2 billion or 81k per share as dividend for its shareholders in the financial year ending 2015.

At the 67th yearly general meeting of the company held in Calabar, the company declared a final dividend of N2.4 billion or 61kobo per share in addition to N794 million interim dividends or 20kobo per share approved earlier in the year bringing the total to N3.2 billion.

Giving details of the company’s performance of shareholders on Tuesday, the Chairman PZ Cussons, Chief Kola Jamodu said in spite of the adverse economic condition including increasing competition, “the consolidated top line (turnover) grew by 0.3 percent from N72.9 billion to N73.1 billion”.

However, he said, “profit before taxation (PBT) dropped by 5.7 percent from N6.95 billion to N6.56 billion due to the impact of the significant exchange loses that were incurred due to the devaluation of the naira during the year under review. Over all, it is gratifying to note that after taking into account of the tough operating conditions and the competitive environment, our company performed satisfactorily against peers in the sector.

“Our balance sheet remains strong with total assets of N67 billion and no debt. We have N1.7 billion of export rebates that are receivable from the Nigerian government included in our total assets”.

He gave the assurance that the company “is geared towards our stakeholders’ expectations by deploying the right strategy and tactical plans to deliver a strong performance in the coming years and the optimisation of our supply chain processes will continue leading to improvement in operational inefficiencies.

“We will also continue to invest in core brands and growth categories through our planned extension into new roots to market, ensuring a minimisation of our cost base. Additionally as we are part of the global business, we are adopting our management structure to reflect a consumer led organisation”.

He noted that, “the impact of this is that brands which have a global presence will be managed centrally, thus reducing the cost of implementing consumer relevant production innovations and offerings, and a similar approach will be adopted for regional brands s the supply chain is being integrated into a single structure across the globe and the sales functions will align across define roots to market strategies with consistent ways of working”.

Within the period under review, Jamodu said the company embarked on corporate social responsibility projects like safe water and improved sanitation projects with Concerned universal in, hand washing saves lives campaign in Cross River and Benue states, 2014 edition of the PZ Chemistry Challenge for Secondary schools in Lagos state, renovation of the burnt kaduna hostels at Government College, Keffi, donation of bloc of classrooms and Library to Okuta Dudu High School, Odo-Ere, Kogi state, construction of youth skill centre at Onikan, lagos and construction of a primary health centre in Bosso Local Government in Niger state.