NIGERIA – Nestle Nigeria said on Wednesday its 2014 full-year pretax profit fell 6.1 percent to N24.44 billion ($121.59m) compared with N26.04 billion a year earlier.

Revenue however rose to N143.32 billion, from N133.06 billion in the same period last year, the company said in a filing with the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE).

The recent fluctuation in the nation’s currency is leading to some cost pressures for fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) firms like Nestle that are operating in Africa’s largest economy.

Pressure on the naira has intensified lately from falling global oil prices which have declined sharply since June 2014. Most FMCG companies such as Nestle, operate a concentrated plant from which products are routed-to-the-market through wide distributorship across the country’s geographical spread.

“Unfortunately, the insecurity concern of Northern Nigeria is taking its toll not only in increasing cost of distribution but also in slowing volume of sales,” one analyst told BusinessDay.

The Nigerian unit of the world’s biggest food group, Nestle SA, said it had proposed a final dividend of N17.5 for each share, down from N19.02 dividend it paid a year ago.

Nestle Nigeria plc, the country’s largest FMCG company by market value, has 792.6 million shares outstanding and trades at a 12 months PE ratio of 30xs, with a dividend yield of 3.27 percent, according to Bloomberg data.

The share price has lost -22.53 percent in the past year and closed trading at N824 per share on the floor of the NSE on Wednesday. Nestle Nigeria had a market capitalisation of N680 billion ($3.4bn) as of February 25, 2015.

March 1, 2015; http://businessdayonline.com/2015/02/nestle-nigeria-2014-fy-profits-down-6-1/#.VPPcZOHcy94