Cadbury Nigeria announces closed period to NSE

Cadbury Nigeria Plc on Monday announced closed period to the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE)

The Company Secretary, Cadbury Nigeria, Fola Akande in a notice said, “This message is to remind all, particularly Cadbury shareholders and other relevant “insiders”, that Cadbury Nigeria has commenced a closed trading period from the 12th January 2021 to end 24 hours after the Quarter 4 2020 Unaudited Financial Statements have been released to the public, after which the trading period will be resumed.

“During this period, Directors, Audit Committee members, staff members and other interested parties who have regular access to Cadbury Nigeria Plc. financial information, or other sensitive information which may materially affect the price of the securities of the company, should observe this earnings-related closed trading period and not buy or sell Cadbury Nigeria Plc shares.

“This is in compliance with the rules of the NSE.

“The rules are also spelt out in our C-14-Insider Trading policy. If you have any questions regarding this policy or the applicability of a part of the policy to you or your activities, please email the Company Secretary at fola.akande@mdlz.com.”

Cadbury Nigeria had posted a turnover of N25.8 billion at the end of the third quarter operations in September 2020. The figure represents a year-on-year drop of over 10 per cent, reflecting declines in both domestic and export sales. This has reversed the strong growth of 25 per cent in export revenue at half-year.

The company’s management moved to defend profit against the weakness in sales by intensifying cost controls in the third quarter. The success of the effort is evident in the ability to build a profit of N420 million for the quarter.

Cost savings were achieved all through the expense lines of the company in the third quarter, leading to improvement in margins. Cost of sales dropped by 11 per cent to N20.5 billion at the end of the third quarter and that worked out some cost-saving for the company.

The company closed the third quarter with earnings per share of 45 kobo, up from 35 kobo per share in the same period in 2019. It closed the 2019 financial year with earnings per share of 57 kobo and paid a cash dividend of 49 kobo per share to shareholders.

The shares of Cadbury Nigeria remained flat at N9.00