Flour Mills’ shareholders get N5.5b dividend

Shareholders of Flour Mills Nigeria Plc (FMN) at the 55th yearly general meeting of the company approved a dividend of N5.5 billion, which amounted to N2.10 per ordinary share of 50 kobo payable net of withholding tax.

The shareholders, as part of special business, also mandated the company to enter into recurrent transactions with related parties for the company’s day-to- day operations.

These include the procurement of goods and services, on normal commercial terms of five per cent of the company’s latest audited net tangible assets, when aggregated with other transactions entered into with the same interested person during the financial year or five per cent of share capital.

The Chairman of the company, John Coumantaros, said the firm is focused on long-term value creation and had put in place strategies to enable it take advantage of emerging opportunities in the market place.

Coumantaros said the directors have considered that given the global economic challenges and difficult business terrain coupled with volatility of exchange rates, it is imperative to preserve liquidity and maintain a prudent policy.

He said that during the last five years, FMN embarked on major expansion programmes and strategic acquisitions, which according to him, most of the projects are now operational, making steady progress towards delivering good returns, positive cash flows, thereby making appreciable contributions to FMN’s top line and bottom line. “The latter stage of the strategic expansion unfortunately coincided with the sudden slump in the global crude oil prices, which resulted in major devaluation of the Naira leading to increase in port costs and financial charges,” he said.