The Chairman of Guinness Nigeria Plc, Mr. Babatunde Savage, has assured shareholders and other stakeholders that efforts are being made to ensure the company returns to profitability after Covid19-induced disruptions caused an adverse decline in revenue for the year ended June 30, 2020. The brewer had recorded a loss of N12.9 billion in 2020 as against a profit of N5.5 billion in 2019.

Speaking at the 70th AGM, Savage said year 2020 was a very challenging year not only for the company but for the manufacturing sector at large.

"But as a forward-looking company, we were still able to minimize our risk exposures and maintain a sustainable performance on all our alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages portfolio. Guinness Nigeria has always remained resolute with our comprehensive and robust strategy by making rightful investments of shareholders' funds but our profit was impacted by a number of one-off accounting adjustments totaling N17.2b, as well as volume declines due to the prevailing economic and COVID-19 impacted conditions," he said.

According to him, the task before the company in the new financial year is to drive its strategic objectives to bring the company back into profitability.

Savage affirmed that despite predictions that the coming year is forecast to be challenging globally due to the new normal, "we believe we have experienced our full share of the impact and are now geared to go back to profitability."

Also speaking, the Managing Director, Guinness Nigeria Plc, Baker Magunda expressed his confidence in the company's outlook for 2021 emphasising that some key strategic decisions of the company during the Covid-19 pandemic assures of a real and forward-driven return to stabilized operations.

Despite the fact that demand was also gravely impacted by reduced consumer income, unemployment concerns due to the shutdown of a large number of businesses, and increases of value added tax (VAT) and excise throughout the year, Magunda assured that the company's reaction to the challenges presented by the COVID-19 lockdown in fourth quarter (Q4) was centered around reducing risk to the business by focusing on cash delivery, reducing distributor inventories, and fast-tracking the ongoing distribution transformation project for efficient sales operations.

"The year under review witnessed the launch of Guinness Smooth; an exciting new variant of the Guinness products to expand profitability for the brand, while catering to a younger, vibrant demographic," he said.

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