National Wire About Nigerians, Nigerian Business and Other Stories
Notwithstanding the economic contraptions that has affected businesses in the domestic economy and especially the pharmaceutical industry, Nigerian foremost indigenous company, Fidson Healthcare Plc has announced a 15 percent growth in its revenue from N14,057 billion in 2017 to N16,229 billion in 2018.
The account statement which was released on Monday April 1, 2019, is the company’s audited account for the period ended December 31, 2018.
However, despite the difficult operating environment which saw some therapeutic substances banned by the government and costs increasing on key production inputs during the period under consideration, the board of directors will be paying a total of N225 million as dividend, this translating to 15 kobo per unit of dividend held.
It will be recall that, the company has paid from inception a cumulative dividend of over N1.9 billion, with an average yield of 7 percent per year. It has over 200 NAFDAC registered product on its shelf.
Other highlight of the full year account shows that as a result of these challenges, Fidson cost of sales went up by over 40 percent from N6.90 billion in 2017 to N9.91 billion in 2018. According to the company, other factors that affected its cost of sales include increased logistics cost for imported materials due to congestion at the seaports which drove up the cost of transporting goods from the ports by 1000 percent.
These factors, as explained by the Managing Director Fidelis Ayebae, together with price depressions that affected some generic products, led to a drop in Gross Margin by 11 percent. These also had a negative impact on profit before tax and profit for the period.
For instance profit before tax reduced by 90 percent from N1,578 billion in 2017 to N160,867 million in 2018. While profit for the period, was a loss of N97,447 million as against profit of N1,060 billion in 2017.
Meanwhile, Fidson directors are optimistic that the ongoing right issue will help the company to deleverage its balance sheet and put it’s on enhanced growth path in 2019. Fidson plans to raise N3 billion from existing shareholders, which will close on April 9, 2019. The healthcare company is offering 750 million shares of 50 kobo each at N4.00 per share on the basis of one new share for every two shares already held.
