No Dividend For PBC Shareholders

The Board of Produce Buying Company (PBC) Limited says it is not in a position to pay dividends to its stakeholders this year.

This, according to the board, was due to the deficit on its income surplus account, resulting from losses incurred over the last two years.

Chairman of the Board, Nana Thomas Aye Kusi, who made the disclosure at the annual general meeting of the company in Accra last Friday, said by the end of last year, PBC was able to reduce the deficit from GH¢642,175 to GH¢191, 1833, giving the assurance that efforts would be made to continue to clear the deficit to pave the way for dividend payments in the future.

PBC, the leading cocoa dealing entity in Ghana also posted a turnover of GH¢195.112 million, representing a decrease of 21.5 percent over the previous year's performance. This, according to Nana Kusi, was due to the decrease in the volume of cocoa purchased by the company during the year under review.

National cocoa production reduced from 740,000 tonnes in 2006 to 614,532 tonnes during the 2007 financial year as a result of the unfavourable weather conditions experienced. Similarly, PBC's volume of purchases decreased by 23percent from 242,473 tonnes in 2006 to 186,051 tonnes in 2007.

However, the Board Chairman said in spite of the reduction of the company's turnover, PBC's net profit before tax increased by 156.6 percent over previous year's figure of a loss of GH¢1.261 million to GH¢713, 605 during the year under review and recorded a market share of 30.4 percent.

“This is an indication that the company has resurrected from its poor performance and ready to take off to higher heights in terms of growth and profitability,” Nana Kusi stated.

The company's total expenses also dropped by 21.4 percent from GH¢29.031 million to GH¢22.804 million.

The Managing Director of the company, Anthony Osei Boakye promised the shareholders that management had fashioned out a three-year medium term corporate plan with the objective of evolving strategies to ensure prudent financial and operational management.

By Felix Dela Klutse