Foreign Exchange Translation Gains Help Boost Dangote Cement’s Income to N1trn
Dangote Cement hauled in record windfall income after converting net investments in foreign operations into the naira, more than doubling the company’s comprehensive income to N1 trillion.
Comprehensive income, the cash earned from profit after tax in addition to extraordinary gains outside the regular sources of income of companies, climbed 150 per cent from N405.4 billion a year earlier, its audited earnings report showed Friday upon release.
Nigeria’s currency crisis has been complicated by a slide of over 70 per cent in the value of the naira against the dollar since a new administration took power last May.
The fall of the Naira, whose exchange rate to the US currency has been increasingly high in past months, has tipped hordes of businesses into loss while putting some multinationals to flight.
Sub-Saharan Africa’s biggest cement producer has footprints in nine countries on the continent outside its base in Nigeria, according to its website.
Revenue accelerated more than one-third to N2.2 trillion, driven by increases in the prices of products in a year Dangote Cement produced less, the document showed.
Production volume fell to 26.7 million tonnes from 27.2 million tonnes one year prior.
But the company alongside peers like BUA Cement and Lafarge Africa, profited phenomenally from a swift succession of hikes in the price of cement during the year even though that has been a pain point for individual users of the product and the real estate industry.
Pre-tax profit jumped 5.5 per cent to N553.1 billion, while profit after tax climbed to N455.6 billion, up from N382.3 billion.
Dangote Cement recently reclaimed the top position as Nigeria’s biggest company by market value, outpacing Airtel Africa, which had hogged the spot for long.
The market capitalisation of the corporation is currently N11.7 trillion.
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