Guinness Nigeria elects John O’Keeffe as its Board VC

Guinness Nigeria Plc has announced the election of John O’Keeffe as the new Vice Chairman of its board.

This is coming on the heels of Mr. Nick Blazquez resignation as a member of the Board of directors and as vice chairman of Guinness Nigeria Plc which took effect from 4th July 2016.

According to the company, the Board formally considered and accepted Nick’s resignation at the meeting of the Board held on 19 September 2016.

Mr. John O’ Keeffe, the president for Diageo Africa and a Non-Executive Director of Guinness Nigeria Plc was then elected by the Board of Directors as the Vice Chairman of the board at the same meeting of the Board held on 19 September 2016.

Guinness Nigeria Plc recently announced a loss after tax of N2.0 billion for the financial period ended June 30th 2016.

The loss after tax for the drink manufacturing company represented a 126 percent decline from N7.8 billion declared as profit in the corresponding period of 2015.

Despite the performance, directors of Guinness Nigeria proposed the payment of final dividend of N753 million from its reserves. The proposal which is subject to approval at the company’s next Annual General Meeting is 84 percent lower than N4.8 billion paid as dividend in 2015 and translates to 50 kobo in contrast to N3.20 paid in 2015.

Peter Ndegwa, Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer, Guinness Nigeria Plc whilst speaking on the results said that the combination of a tough economic environment and challenges with naira devaluation had a significant impact on Guinness Nigeria’s overall performance.

“Our performance this year was impacted by two major factors, one being the very tough economic challenges around consumer spending, driving consumer preferences towards value brands across the sector, the other, and more significant factor being the effect of FX policy and the devaluation of the Naira. When you take out the impact of the latter, our underlying performance for the year was broadly in line with the prior year in spite of the pressure on the top line.”

The company’s share price dropped 0.25 percent or 23 kobo on Thursday to close at N92.77 per share.

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