Flour Mills Shareholders Approve N6.77bn Dividend Pay-out

Flour Mills Shareholders Approve N6.77bn Dividend Pay-out

Darasimi Adebisi

Shareholders of Flour Mills of Nigeria (FMN) Plc have approved a dividend pay out of N1.65 per share, amounting to a total of N6.77 billion for the financial year ended March 31, 2021.

The shareholders gave their approval at the company 61st Annual General Meeting (AGM) held in Lagos in accordance with COVID-19 protocol.

The chairman of Flour Mills of Nigeria, John Coumantaros speaking to shareholders at the AGM said despite the current COVID-19 severe environment, the group delivered an impressive year-over-year top-line growth with an average revenue rise of 34 per cent across all business categories.

According to him: “Our agro-allied turnaround strategy coupled with the Group’s investments in lucrative local content and route to market activities, particularly in the B2C segment, resulted in an increase in profit before tax of N13.4 billion from a break even situation in the same period last year.”

Coumantaros noted that the directors proposed the payment of a dividend of N1.65 per share, a 17 per cent increase over last year, stressing that to complement growth strategy, “management is keeping reserves to fund additional investments in important business categories, such as local content creation and the Company B2C route to market strategy.”

He said that the food division is focused on the continued execution of its objective to double the operating profit in five years, saying that the key pillars of the Company’s strategy are the expansion of the consumer business by driving existing categories harder, “accessing new ones, with an enhanced innovation capability, investment in a winning Route to Consumer, and maximizing value creation in B2B and B2C businesses.”

Coumantaros stated that the company will continue to act with disciplined and focused investment to deliver superior, long term growth so that we can emerge stronger.

He said, “We will continue to implement our overarching long-term strategy on local content and value additions as our group stays guided by its purpose of ‘Feeding the Nation Everyday’.”

The Group Managing Director of FMN, Boye Olusanya noted that as a business, we have consistently prioritised operational and capital efficiency by increasing local content in our group-wide supply chains and supporting backward integration programmes through our five key value chains.

He also said that: “We implemented a turnaround strategy in the agro-allied segment, which included deliberate efforts to acquire raw materials from a network of smallholder farmers and young entrepreneurs.”

According to Olusanya: “we have continued to partner with groups like the Flour Milling Association of Nigeria (FMAN) to boost local content in the country and this has resulted in the aggregation of over 7,000 tons of wheat grains from our over 15 collection points across some Northern states, including the support of farmers with mechanised harvesting and threshing services.

He noted: “Over the years, the group has advocated for and supported the expansion of agriculture in Nigeria, believing that a rapid transformation in the domestic agricultural output and indeed yield is the major catalyst for the country’s industrial transformation.

“We recognise that this is critical for a business like ours and as such, we will maintain our path and continue to strive to have access to the right raw materials in sufficient quantities necessary to continue on our purpose of feeding Nigerians every day.”

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