Lafarge Africa Plc, a leading cement and building solutions provider, has now reported its 12 months 2015 results, with its revenue growing by 2. 46 per cent to N267.234 billion, in a challenging transitional market. This is against N260.810 billion recorded in the previous year. South West operations grew by 8 per cent behind a number of initiatives such as the Key Distribution Scheme, a strong route to market and solid capacity utilization.
ReadyMix Nigeria continued its strong growth with a 29 per cent increase over prior year. South African revenues rose by 7 per cent in the last quarter. The company said that Ashaka operations are normalized, following the security challenges in the region which affected demand for cement in the North. Management remains very optimistic about the long term outlook for Ashaka, which is foreseen to return to strong growth in 2016.
. The South African cement operations returned to growth in fourth quarter with production up by 28 per cent against last year, following the kiln overhauls in first quarter of 2015.
Group after tax profit declined by 20 per cent against the previous year, when taking into account the one-off restructuring costs and the unrealized exchange impact on the Mfamosing operations foreign currency borrowings from the parent group, LafargeHolcim, the world’s largest building materials company.
The board proposed dividend payment of 300 kobo and bonus of one for every 10 shares held by investors. The statement from the company said that the one-off impact of the adjustment to the naira value of the foreign currency borrowing, due to the deterioration in the naira exchange rate, is to a large extent an accounting exercise as Lafarge Africa Plc is not foreseen to repay the shareholder loans in the foreseeable future, which makes up the majority of the foreign currency borrowing. Excluding these one-off/none operational impacts, profit improved by six per cent compared the preceding year behind the strong underlying fundamentals of Lafarge Africa Plc’s operations. Cash flow from operations was robust at N57.9 billion.
The Nigerian operations of Lafarge Africa according to the statement have been successfully unified and rationalized under one management team while being cognizant of the different stakeholders. Lafarge Africa has strengthened its foundation further by increasing its shareholding in Mfamosing operations from 35 per cent to 50 per cent , with full management control and consolidation.