The Flour Mills of Nigeria Plc (FMN) has announced its audited financial results for the year ended March 31, 2021, showing improved performance indicators.

The results showed that the group achieved impressive top-line growth for the year, aided by gains from its agro-allied turnaround strategy.

Specifically, FMN posted a revenue of N771.6 billion for the year, showing an increase of 34.5 per cent compared with the N573.77 billion recorded the previous year. Net finance cost fell from N17.5 billion to N15 billion, resulting from better cost and financial management strategy. Profit before tax rose by 112 per cent to N37.19 billion from N17.50 billion, while profit after tax (PAT) grew faster by 126 per cent to print at N25.72 billion compared with N11.38 billion the preceding year.

Based on the performance, the board has proposed a dividend of 165 kobo per share up from 140 kobo per share last year.

Commenting on the results, the Group Managing Director, Mr. Omoboyede Olusanya said: “FMN emerges from the prevailing COVID-19 environment as a stronger, more resilient, flexible, and confident business as a result of the collective strategic actions made over our 60-year history. I want to thank all our employees for their patience and hard work as we consistently adapted to the year’s challenges and invested significantly in our purpose of feeding the nation every day.”

“FMN is now harvesting the fruits of these efforts and remains committed to braving a continuously uncertain environment with cautious optimism, innovation, portfolio advancement and other strategies outlined in our recent sustainability report.”

In the year under review FMN successfully issued N30 billion in corporate notes with tenors of 5 and 7 years at 5.50 per cent and 6.25 per cent, respectively, to strategically replace costly short-term facilities.

Championing backward integration programmes also enabled the company to expand value delivery across all value chains, including strategic partnerships with smallholder farmers, which drove an average revenue gain of 34 per cent across all business sectors.

Also, the company said its food business also recorded exponential organic growth, driven by constant product innovation and transformation in new markets, as well as operational efficiency through route-to-market investments in digitisation and rapid expansion in the business to consumer (B2C) sectors.