Cement firms grow profits by 28.1% in nine months

The total profit made by cement marketing companies in the country in the first nine months of the year amounted to N81.6bn.

This is in contrast to N63.7bn the firms gained in the same period in 2019.

The cement manufacturing companies, Lafarge Africa Plc and BUA Cement Plc, saw their profits for the period ended September 30 swell by N17.9bn to N81.6bn from N63.7bn in the first nine months of 2019.

Similarly, BUA Cement’s revenue for the first nine months of the year increased by  20.9 per cent to N156.5bn, compared to the N129.4bn recorded in the same period of 2019.

It recorded a profit after tax of N53.5bn in the nine-month period as against N43.2bn in the corresponding period of 2019.

In half-year 2020, BUA Cement declared revenues of N101.3bn and a Profit After Tax of N34.82bn representing an increase of 12.7 per cent and 13.74 per cent respectively from the corresponding period in 2019. This was contained in a filing at the Nigerian Stock Exchange.

He noted that the Nigerian cement industry growth momentum was expected to slow down in 2020 compared to 2019 on the back of the  pandemic and the challenging global macro-economic environment.