Cadbury Nigeria Plc has recorded a second-year loss of N22.2bn, making a total of N44.6bn losses recorded in 2023 and 2024.
Cadbury which manufactures Bournvita, recorded N22.4bn loss in 2023 resulting from high cost of operations that took N72.6bn from its N80.4bn revenue in 2023.
In 2024, the company grew its revenue by 61 per cent to N129.2bn but still sustained losses as the company spent N110.9bn on the cost of sale alone while selling and administrative expenses to N6.2bn and N6bn respectively.
In 2024, Cadbury spent N34.2bn on finance cost.
Further breakdown of its expenses by nature showed that it spent N89.2bn on finished goods, raw and packaging materials, personnel expenses gulped N7.4bn while energy and utility bills took N7bn.
The company spent N5bn on production and office consumables while N3bn was spent on advertising.
Due to the losses, Cadbury has not declared dividends since 2023 and the basic loss per share for the Company is 975 kobo in 2024.
Following its poor performance, the shareholders of Cadbury Nigeria held an extraordinary general meeting of the Company on 8th February 2024 and resolved to convert the intercompany loan of $7.72m owed by the Company to Cadbury Schweppes Overseas Limited
(CSOL) to equity by the allotment of 402,082,657 ordinary shares of 50kobo to CSOL.
Also, on 28 January 2024, Cadbury’s board negotiated a debt forgiveness of $20m from CSOL on the $40m received on
15 January 2024.
The company said, “The debt forgiveness was necessary due to the significant devaluation of the Nigerian Naira from N911.68 in
December to N1400 in January 2024 against the US Dollar.
“The debt forgiveness amount of N29.7bn is responsible for the movement in other reserves for 2024 financial year.”
