Nigeria’s largest company listed on the stock exchange; Dangote Cement will pay shareholders a cash dividend of N8 per share in respect of its 2015 financial year. The company released its financial results on March 1, 2016 showing that sales rose by 25.6 percent to N491.7 billion.
The company says that many more Nigerians have been buying its cement since it decided to cut prices last year leading to a significant increase in sales.
But the cut the in the price of cement also means that profits did not increase as significantly as sales. Profit before tax was just up marginally by 1.94 percent to N188.3 billion in December 2015 compared to N184.7 billion for the same period of December 2014.
However, the company’s earnings per share stood at N10.86 from which the company will pay N8 dividend per share, which means about 73.7 percent of the company’s earnings that will go to shareholders. The dividend will hit bank accounts of shareholders on April 21, 2016.
But Dangote also released figures of its early performance in 2016, which if sustained into the rest of the year, means that the Dangote Group will significantly surpass the performance seen in 2015 financial year.
Cement sales in January 2016 for the Dangote Group was up 77.6 percent to 2.0 metric tonnes (MT) with sales in Nigeria rising 46.4 percent to 1.4MT compared to 1.0MT sold in the comparable period of January 2015.
Dangote Group sales were also up 38 percent in February 2016 compared to the same period of February 2015 while Nigerian sales was more than 60 percent higher to 1.5MT when compared to corresponding period of 2015.
Dangote Cement share price gained 4.99 percent on March 1 to close at N148.83. The company’s share price is down 12.5 percent this year.
