The shareholders of Dangote Sugar refinery Plc, approved N18.22 billion dividend payout for the year ended December 31, 2022.
The shareholders gave their approval at the 17th Annual General Meeting (AGM) held at the weekend in Lagos, with the dividend translating to N1.50 per share.
Also, the company said, it is targeting the production of over 170,000 tonnes of sugar next season.
Speaking to shareholders, chairman of the company, Aliko Dangote 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 (BIP) 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 an impressive turnover of N403 billion, a 46 per cent increase over N276 billion recorded during the same period in the year before, and posted a Profit before Tax (PBT) of N82 billion.
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 success 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.
Dangote further said that, during the year under review, the first phase of the Sugar Master Plan implementation period came to an end and that the federal government approved the second phase over the next 10 years, saying this extension came on the back of the review of the first phase by the National Sugar Development Council and other government parastatals with cognisance of the challenges and several circumstances that were unforeseen which riddled the first phase of the programme.
Speaking on behalf of shareholders, the coordinator of the Pragmatic Shareholders Association, Mrs. Adebisi Bakare expressed the satisfaction of shareholders with the performance of the company, noting that, despite all the encumbrances in the sugar sub-sector of the economy, the company still performed far and above the previous year.
She urged the board and the management to continue in the direction they have taken to get the company to the current winning, assuring that, the management has the support of the shareholders to post even better performance in the coming years.
