WorldStage Newsonline– Dangote Sugar Refinery has released a strong fourth quarter (Q4) 2017 results with profit before tax (PBT) growth of 234% to N14.3bn compared with Q4 2016 and profit after tax (PAT) growth of 210% to N13.3bn.
The results were achieved despite sales declined of 24% to N41.4bn.
Unit volume sales came in at 657,775 tonnes, indicating that Q4 volume sales were flattish. This implies that DSR implemented further price cuts during the quarter.
Sugar production at the Lagos refinery declined by -17% y/y to 654,723 tonnes, implying a capacity utilisation of 45%.
Sugar production at Savannah Sugar Company (SSC) was flattish y/y at around 17,000 tonnes. A gross margin expansion of 1,566bps y/y to 23.0% and a significant rise in net finance charges completely offset the topline decline to lead to the PBT growth.
Net finance charges were boosted by fx-related gains of N3.9bn during the quarter. Sequentially, while sales fell -7% q/q, PBT and PAT were both up 3% q/q and 41% q/q respectively.
DSR has proposed a final dividend of N1.25 (interim of 50 kobo paid earlier) vs. our N1.1 forecast
