*Despite 44.1% rise in personnel cost to N25.9b in 2025
WorldStage– The shareholders of Guinness Nigeria Plc, the nation’s largest brewer on Thursday notched up their directors’ remuneration for 2026 to N180 million, still a 26.5 percent below N245 million they fixed for 2022.
The decision followed a series of underpayment of the non-executive directors over the last five years. The average number of meeting they attended stood at seven last year, according to its 2025 audited financial statement (AFS).
The brewer’s 75th annual General meeting (AGM), whose outcomes included the pay raise, was the fifth of such decisions that sealed its board and chairman’s remunerations over the years.
Nigeria’s Company and Allied Matters Act (CAMA: 2020) mandates registered companies in section 293 to determine directors’ aggregate remuneration at the AGM.
The disclosure makes for transparency. Guinness Nigeria, however, has been underpaying the directors in the reporting years despite its personnel cost rising 44.1 percent to N25.9 billion in 2025, from N18 billion a year before.
In the 2021-2022 financial year when the AGM fixed the remuneration for N245 million, Guinness Nigeria paid the board N71 million, and the chairman, N35.9 million.
And from the intervening financial years between 2022 and 2025, the shareholders stuck to N150.5 million, but the directors received about 46 percent of the amount.
The company refused to disclose in its audited financial statement the amount it paid its directors in 2025. But their combined fee the year before stood at N65.3 million for the directors, and N38.3 million for the chairman.
For the 2023 financial year, the directors got N69.8 million while their chairman got N35.9 million.
CAMA: 2020 puts no company under any obligation to remunerate its shareholders. The pay, charged as a debt to the company, however, eases the directors’ efforts and commitment to achieve the company’s goals.
