Dangote Sugar Refinery Plc has said it will pay N18.22bn as dividends to shareholders for the year ended December 31, 2022.
This is despite the economic headwinds that characterised 2022 financial period.
The dividend payout will translate to N1.50 kobo per share held by shareholders.
During its 17th annual general meeting in Lagos, it also revealed that it was targeting the production of over 170,000 tonnes of sugar next season.
The Chairman of the Company, Aliko Dangote, while speaking at the meeting, said, “The shareholders are very happy with the way we have been running their company and also in re-investing the profit into the Backward Integration Programme for the sugar industry.
“We are going to play our part in ensuring that Nigeria becomes self-sufficient in sugar within a very short period. We are not the only players, but we will surely play our part. We should be able to produce over 170,000 tonnes which are by far, in the history of Nigeria, the highest to be produced locally.”
The company recorded a turnover of N403bn, a 46 per cent increase over N276bn recorded during the same period in 2021, , and posted a profit before tax of N82bn.
Dangote attributed the company’s remarkable performance to the pragmatic approach the management deployed by focusing on continued cost and process optimisation, improved efficiencies in every area of operations, and service delivery to our customers.
He pledged that the management would continue to implement strategic actions to sustain the performance with the support of all stakeholders with complete adherence to the tenets of the Federal Government’s Sugar Master Plan.
Dangote said part of the successes recorded by Dangote Sugar was made possible by the management’s continued implementation of the Dangote Sugar Development Master Plan with the rehabilitation and upgrade of the Dangote Sugar Refinery’s Numan operations, facilities and land development, as well as the development of the Nasarawa Sugar Company Limited, the greenfield sugar project, and Tunga in Nasarawa State.
In her remarks, the Coordinator of the Pragmatic Shareholders Association, Mrs Adebisi Bakare, expressed the satisfaction of shareholders with the performance of the company.
She noted that despite all the challenges in the sugar sub-sector of the economy, the company still performed far and above the previous year.