Unilever Nigeria adopt aggressive strategies to reduce its operation costs says the Chairman

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Unilever Nigeria’s Brands Porfolio

From Benjamin A Ameh, Lagos

Unilever Nigeria has confidence in the Nigerian economy and will remain a major player in the country by continually investing, developing capabilities and growing brands that most suit the consumers ‘needs.

Speaking during the 90th Annual General Meetings held on Tuesday in Lagos, the Chairman of the Company, His Majesty, Nnaemeka Achebe, Obi of Onitsha said having taken significant earnings from 2014, we will be more aggressive about driving down costs and actively finding savings through all facets of our value chain. Our ambition is to continue to deliver value to all stakeholders and positively affect our communities by leveraging on the Unilever sustainable living plans (USlP).

Obi of Onitsha also said working together as a team spirit with stakeholders and shareholders, keeping focus on our priorities and putting our consumers and shoppers first, we will realize our ambitions.

He pointed out that Unilever has subscribed to the highest standards of corporate behavior by being transparent in her dealing, fair in competition, and above all, law abiding. In operating challenges environment like Nigeria, the company remains pride in the area of corporate governance by strictly adhering to Unilever’s global code of business principles (ugcbp), said the chairman.

“The company is also a socially responsible and responsive organization. Unilever has delivered significant social investments that have helped create a brighter future for numerous Nigerians. The company has also leveraged its 13 great brands portfolio to impact lives positively. As the company drives these impactful initiatives, Unilever employees are also encouraged to contribute meaningfully to the society through voluntarily services aimed at improving lives of the less privileges.

“The company has high growth aspirations, with a vision to double its business size over the next few years while reducing environmental impact.

“Unilever Nigeria plc was established in 1923 as a soup manufacturing company-lever brothers West Africa –by Lord Leverhulme and by this record, the Unilever Nigeria no doubt is the oldest surviving manufacturing organization in the country.

In responses to financial performance of the company during the year under review, the chairman said the tough business decisions taken in 2014 have evolved a Unilever Nigeria plc that is better placed to thrive within the ever increasing VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous) operating business environment.

Obi of Onitsha noted that “we deliberately re-focus on route to market; consumers’ needs and aspirations, products quality, capacity expansion and zero business waste are already producing a sturdier business model which enables us to grow sustainably into the future.”

The route to market transformation involved rationalization of trade inventories which brought pressures to a weak performance in the year under review.

However, the performance trend from the last quarter of the year signifies definite progress towards realizing our growth ambitions and making the business more competitive. The short-term impact of our deliberate transformation actions is a 7percent in revenue, an operating margin stood at 8percent from 13.10 percent in last year and a drop in earnings per share from N1.25k in 2013 to N0.64k.

The directors recommend to the shareholders the payments of a cash dividend in respect of the year ended December 31, 2014 of N378329625 that translated to 10 kobo gross dividend per share payable on Friday, May 15, 2015 which was immediately approved by the shareholders.


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