By Alex C
Honeywell Flour Mills plc has posted a 21 percent growth in its turnover of N55.08 billion for its fiscal year, April 1, 2013, to March 31, 2014, up from N46 billion in the last fiscal year. This result was indicated in its end of year report recently presented to the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE).
Profit after tax (PAT) also climbed 18 percent from N2.8 billion to N3.5 billion, which translated to an 18 percent increase in Earnings Per Share (EPS) from 35.86 kobo to 42.26 kobo.
The fiscal year ended with a transition in the leadership of the company; the pioneer CEO, Folaranmi Babatunde Odunayo, retired after 17 years of meritorious service and was succeeded by Olanrewaju Bamidele Jaiyeola.
Prior to his appointment as managing director, Lanre Jaiyeola has garnered 20 years experience in the company, working across strategic departments at both managerial and executive management levels.
According to Lanre Jaiyeola, managing director Honeywell Flour Mills, this result “reflect the company’s increased output capacity and aggressive push to meet rising demand across its product categories.”
Speaking further on the results, Jaiyeola disclosed that “despite the challenge of input cost pressures caused by increase in wheat prices, Honeywell Flour Mills was still able to achieve a 32 per cent increase in Gross Profit from the N8 billion recorded last year to N10.4 billion in the period under review due to deft management of raw material sourcing and efficient control of production cost.”
He continued: “the sheer challenge of operating in the Nigerian business environment was evident in the rising profile of Honeywell Flour Mill’s operating expenses as it incurred costs to deepen its trade, marketing and sales activities to further develop hitherto under-served sectors of the Nigerian market.
“Growing the top line is our number one priority, even as large industry capacity remains a constant threat. We are committed to the development of higher margin products and from our results, you can see that investments in brand equity are beginning to yield fruits as sales of our value added products like semolina, wheat meal and noodles contributed more to our portfolio mix than in the past. This is a trend that we plan to sustain and even grow as we embark on a new phase in our corporate existence.”
Honeywell Flour Mills is currently at advanced stages in the development of a new Pasta plant and an Integrated Animal Feed Mill in Sagamu, Ogun State. Both projects, which are to be completed in year 2016, will create thousands of jobs and support several agriculture value chains in Nigeria, focusing on local raw material inputs.
Operating from two locations, Apapa and Ikeja, in Lagos, Honeywell Flour Mills Plc. is one of the largest foods focused FMCG companies in Nigeria and is a member company of the Honeywell Group. Its products include branded food products like Honeywell Pasta, Honeywell Noodles, Honeywell Wheat Meal and Honeywell Semolina.