GGBL improves earnings

Guinness Ghana Breweries Limited (GGBL) has made significant progress during its 2007/2008 financial year which ended on 30th June 2008. The company recorded 18% improvement in its net earnings over the same period last year.

The company's sales turnover increased from GH ¢124.85 million recorded during the 2006/2007 financial year to GH ¢164.44 million in the 2007/2008 financial year. This signifies 31% year on year growth. On the other hand, cost of sales increased from GH ¢ 80.12 million to GH ¢ 100.04 million implying 25% increase. The company's income from other activities however fell from GH ¢1.14 million to GH ¢805,000. All these collectively resulted in a net profit of GH ¢16.67 million signifying 18.3% increase over the previous year's net profit of GH ¢14.09 million. This resulted in a significant increase in Earnings Per share (EPS) from GH ¢0.0854 to GH ¢0.1001.

Management of the company attributes its impressive performance to the introduction of cost management initiatives despite increased in the company's cost of sales, increase in the prices of the company's products to offset inflation and successful innovation of the company's products including the introduction of the company's unique star bottle.

The company will hold its Annual General Meeting (AGM) on 24th November where a proposed dividend payment will be put before the shareholders for approval. The company's listed equity recorded 83% price appreciation so far this year from GH¢1.23 as at the beginning of the year to GH ¢2.25 as at the close of the week.