May & Baker Leverages on Investment for Expansion

May & Baker Nigeria Plc. is leveraging on its investment in a multi-billion naira pharmaceutical manufacturing facility to steadily grow turnover and profit despite the challenging business environment in the country. The facility, which was last year certified by the World Health Organisation, (WHO) has overcome initial hurdles to position as the hub of pharmaceutical manufacturing in West Africa with a remarkable level of capacity utilisation and efficiency. The unaudited financial results of the nine months of 2015 showed that May &Baker made nine per cent growth in turnover and 165 per cent growth in profit when compared with the same period in 2014. The results, which were recently published by the Nigerian Stock Exchange showed a turnover of N5.3 billion and N60.63 million profit for the period, January to September, 2015 compared to a revenue of N4. 8 billion and loss of N93.5 million for the same period in 2014.

The company’s result from January to September, also showed improvement in all fundamentals, a trend, which started in the last quarter of 2014 and significantly improved by the first half of 2015. Gross profit improved by 10.3 per cent over the 2014 figures while profit for the year, after providing for taxation also grew by 144 per cent from a loss of N93 million in 2014 to a net profit position of N41 million. The company recorded a gross profit figure of N1.8 billion against N1.6 billion for the same period of 2014 while operating profit grew by 31 per cent from N360 million to N470 million. Selling costs followed the increase in revenue with a growth of 8.2 per cent while distribution, sales and marketing expenses remained flat at N847 million. Administrative costs inched up by 2 per cent at N444 million. Similarly, the company reined in finance charges, reducing same by 8.7 per cent from N466 million in 2014 to N425 million in 2015. The nine months report of May & Baker Nigeria Plc for 2015 is a clear indication of efficient management of resources and cost containment. It also points to the systematic recovery of the company as a leading profit maker in the healthcare industry, few years after investing over N4 billion to build a world class manufacturing facility.