Unilever Ghana Limited realized a 10 per cent growth in revenue from GHC 575 million in 2017 to GHC632 million in December 2018 . The company's operating profit before tax stood at GHC 250 million representing 283 per cent increase over 2017's GHC65 million, thus profit after tax saw an improvement of 296 per cent from GHC 48 million in 2017 to GHC 191 million in 2018.
Mr Edward Effah, Board Chairman for Unilever Ghana Limited made these remarks at the 45th Annual General Meeting held in Accra on 24th May, 2019. He said that there was an operating profit of GHC 89 million on sale of spread businesses as well as a reversal of management and technical services fees amounting to GHC 111 million.
Mr Effah said that this has resulted in the company therefore, proposing a dividend pay-out of GHP 0.80 per share for the 2018 profits amounting to a total of GHC 50,000,000 which was welcomed by shareholders at the meeting.
He added that growth in the industry is projected at 9.8 per cent in 2019 and 5.9 per cent in 2020. He said that the reforms in the banking sector resulted in an increase in credit facilities offered to clients affected by the collapse of banks. Measures, however, were put in place to ensure due diligence is done before doing so.
He noted that the company will explore all avenues to assist in offering employment for unemployed graduates and also improve in their mode of communicating with shareholders in disseminating information.
"The recapitalization exercise resulted in a growth in the banking sector of 14.7 per cent year on year to GHC 107.3 billion with an expectation of growth to rebound as banks deploy their newly-injected capital towards financial inter-mediation" he stated.
The Managing Director, Mrs Gladys Amoah, in a statement, said that the company has invested more than GHC39 million in a Biomass Boiler, heating, an Oral onshore project , a Ghana Tea Bag sachet on-shoring project among others, to improve efficiency of operations.
She said that the company is focused on supporting the health and hygiene of Ghanaians and working on projects to ensure a cleaner environment. The company embarked on hand-washing with soap with their lifebuoy brand in several communities in the country, the construction of new hygiene stations in partnership with Global Communities, a USAID sponsored NGO, among others.
"Considering the level of growth achieved, we cannot afford to drop the bar, but to build upon the strong platform achieved in 2018 and increase operational intensity with customer focus to achieve our continuous growth ambition" she said.
Present at the meeting were other members of the board, shareholders and the media.
BusinessGhana.