Shareholders of Dangote Cement Plc yesterday commended the management of the company for an impressive performance despite the economic challenges and the payment of N272.6 billion as a dividend for the 2020 financial year. The dividend translated to N16 per share.
The shareholders at the virtual 12th Annual General Meeting (AGM) held in Lagos, also commended the management for the full disclosure provided for the year, share buyback process and the various donations made at COVID-19 pandemic.
Speaking at the 12th annual general meeting (AGM) in Lagos, the founding National Coordinator, Independent Shareholders Association of Nigeria, Sir Sunny Nwosu commended the company for attaining a trillion-naira revenue growth, saying that the company was moving in the best way of corporate governance.
He appealed to the company to prevail on its numerous distributors who arbitrarily sell cement at very high costs as against the real factory price, thereby making so much profit for themselves.
Another shareholder, Nona Awoh applauded the board for the consistency in dividend payout, urging the board to consider payment of dividend twice a year.
In his address to shareholders, Chairman of Dangote Cement Plc, Aliko Dangote assured them of better returns always, noting that the company is doing everything possible to create wealth for its shareholders and other stakeholders.
According to him, despite the challenging year impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, 2020 was a record year for Dangote Cement across the board.
“Dangote Cement hit the N1 trillion mark in term of revenue. Group revenues were up 16 per cent compared to 2019. We record Group cement sales of 25.7 million tonnes (Mt) and revenues of N1.034 trillion. Most notably was our record-high EBITDA of N478.1 billion, up 20.9 per cent compared to 2019…”
He said in 2020, they inaugurated their Apapa and Onne export terminals in Nigeria and commenced clinker exports to West and Central Africa.
“The vision for our exporter strategy is to make West and Central Africa cement and clinker self-sufficient, with Nigeria as the main supplier and exporter. We also remain focused on meeting the demand in Nigeria and as such, we increased our capacity by three metric tonnes (MT) on Obajana and we commissioned our gas-fired power plant in Tanzania. Our Nigerian domestic operations sold 15.6Mt, up 14.3 per cent year-on-year, growing ahead of the market. This strong volume growth was enhanced by our successful innovative national consumer promotion ‘Bag of Goodies- Season 2’, lower rains in the Q3 compared to the previous year and the low-interest rate environment driving strong demand for real estate assets and supporting the construction sector,” he said.
