Nigerian Breweries sees half year revenues drop 5%, signposting what’s ahead on likely impact of new excise duty regime

Local brewing giant, Nigerian Breweries, has given the first hint yet of the possible impact on the performance of companies falling under new excise duty regime and higher rate for alcoholic beverages in the second half of the year as the company’s half year unaudited results just released showed a five percent drop in revenues. Nigerian Breweries is one of the economy’s high flyers.

The new excise duty regime and higher rate of alcoholic beverages (including beer) were introduced in June and without the full impact registering on its financials, the company fall in revenues has just shown how consumers’ purchasing power is being affected by higher prices of goods, said one analyst.

An analysis of the filing the company made with The Nigerian Stock Exchange on Monday showed that the company’s revenue fell from N181 billion in the first half of 2017 to N173 billion in the current period.

In the filed statement signed by Uaboi Agbebaku, the company’s secretary and legal adviser, the company said it recorded profit after tax of N18 billion for the first half of 2018.

The N18 billion represents a 22 percent decrease over the N24 billion recorded in the corresponding period in 2017.

A further analysis of the statement show that results from operating activities declined by 20 percent from N39 billion in 2017 to N32 billion in the corresponding months in 2018, just as profit before tax also dropped by 19 percent from N34 billion in 2017 to N28 billion in the period under review.