May & Baker Nigeria Plc has reported a 9.2 per cent rise in its gross profit for the year ended December 31, 2013.
Its results released to the Nigerian Stock Exchange showed that gross profit which stood at N2.07bn a year earlier, rose by 9.2 per cent to close the financial year at N2.26bn.
Also, the company recorded considerable increase in sales and midline profits in 2013 with controlled costs and improvements on its administrative and operational expenses.
Its results showed a growth of 12.3 per cent in sales, while turnover rose from N5.67bn in 2012 to N6.37bn in 2013.
The statement by the company noted that its operating profit was boosted with a 6.2 per cent reduction in administrative expenses, just as it controlled distribution, marketing and sales expenses to record a marginal increase to N1.29bn compared to N1.26bn recorded in 2012. Administrative expenses reduced from N588.5m in 2012 to N552.09m in 2013.
Therefore, the company’s operating profit rose by 172.1 per cent from N232.95m in 2012 to N633.80m in 2013.
The statement said, “The achievement in midline profit was made despite a staggering provision of almost N240m as provision for depreciation for the new pharmaceutical manufacturing plant recently built by the company.
“While gross profit margin was steady at 35.5 per cent in 2013 as against 36.5 per cent in 2012, operating margin, which measures average profit on each unit of sales before deduction of taxes and finance charges and addition of non-operational incomes, doubled from 4.1 per cent in 2012 to 10 per cent in 2013.
“However, the company remained under pressures from financing charges, the main downside to the huge new pharmaceutical manufacturing plant, which was financed largely by loans, leading to a negative pre-tax profit of N11m.”
The company had raised her capacity to produce more products with the construction of a world class pharmaceutical centre known as the May & Baker PharmaCentre located in Ogun State.
The PharmaCentre is one of the few Nigerian pharmaceutical facilities seeking international certification by the World Health Organisation and is currently undergoing the pre-qualification process by the organisation.
