Dangote Cement Plc said on Monday that the cement terminals being built in Lagos State and Onne, Rivers, would be completed before the end of 2019 in a bid to enhance their market share.
The company’s chairman, Aliko Dangote, said this at the company’s 10th Annual General Meeting (AGM) in Lagos while addressing shareholders.
He proposed that the terminals would be operational by the end of 2019, which were delayed by equipment vendors.
Mr Dangote said that, through cement exports to sub-Saharan Africa, the terminals would rake in foreign exchange for about $700 million.
He said the firm would open export facilities to export clinker and cement to its current installations in both Cameroon and other African nations within the terminals.
“We will open export facilities in Lagos and Port Harcourt later in 2019 that will allow us to export clinkers first to our grinding plant in Cameroon and then to fresh grinding plans that we are building in West Africa.
“These will not only produce helpful foreign currency for Dangote Cement to support other non-Nigerian development initiatives, they will also help to boost the production of our Nigerian crops,” Mr Dangote said.
He said the firm was going to export cements to Ghana, Cameroon, Sierra Leone and Congo, among others, through the terminals.
Mr Dangote said the terminals would make Nigeria Sub-Saharan Africa’s largest exporter of cement.
According to him, the capacity of the company will improve when terminals are completed.
Mr Dangote said the project would help boost the country’s job creation and prosperity.
On the dividend, he said there was a 52.4 percent rise in the dividend payment over the N10.50 per share paid in 2017.
Specifically, the firm claimed a total N272.6 billion dividend, which translated into N16 per 50k ordinary share authorized at the conference by shareholders.
The dividend was 52.4 percent higher than the company’s total dividend of N178.9 billion or N10.50 per share for the financial year 2017.
Earlier, Nigeria’s Founder of Independent Shareholders Association, Sunny Nwosu, praised the firm for the 2018 declared impressive dividend.
Mr Nwosu said the firm had excellent corporate governance records in all its operating fields, even outside Nigeria’s coasts, made up of quality board members.
Farouk Umar, Chairman of the Nigerian Shareholders ‘ Rights Advancement Association, praised the firm for the impressive 2018 report despite the financial condition.
Mr Umar said the shareholders were pleased with the 2018 N16 dividend, adding that the trend should continue in the future.
Another shareholder, Nona Awoh, encouraged the business to boost its market share ability.
Mr Awoh advised that the firm should identify fresh approaches to decrease its unclaimed inventory of dividends
The company recorded total revenue of some 901.2 billion during the financial year ended December 31, 2018 compared to some 805.5 billion attained in 2017, an increase of 11.9 percent.
Pre-tax profit stood at about 300.8 billion, an increase of 3.9 percent over the 2017 figure of some 289.59 billion.
Out of the N204.25 billion reached in 2017, profit for the year stood at N390.33 billion.
