The shares of Lafarge Africa Plc decreased from N22.25 per share at the start of trading on Tuesday, November 15, to N20.10 at the end of the trading session.
The decline represents a 9.66% loss, even as the cement maker’s market capitalization dropped to N323.766 billion from N358.398 billion.
This resulted in a loss of N34.631 billion in market capitalization at the close of trading activities on the Nigerian Exchange.
Negative sentiment: The stock price drop can be attributed to investors’ negative sentiment which triggered sell-offs, plunging the company’s value down as build-up to the 2023 election and interest rate hike continued to impact negatively on the market.
Lafarge Wapco began the year with a share price of N23.95 but has since lost 16.1% off the price valuation.
Financial highlight: Lafarge Africa announced revenue of N269.8 billion for the third quarter period ended September 2022, up from N219.2 billion recorded in 2021. This represents an increase of 23.08%.
The company also reported a profit after tax of N44.899 billion for the review period from N40.394 billion during the comparable period in 2021, representing an 11.15% growth.
The cost of sales for the period stood at N135.08 billion from N117.09 billion in 2021, representing a growth of 15.36%. The cost of sales consumed 50.06% of the total revenue.
Forex impacted costs: Khaled El Dokani, CEO of Lafarge Africa, noted that in Q3 2022, the company’s Net Sales improved by 12.2% over Q3 2021. He added that the worsening exchange rate situation impacted the firm’s cost of sales, specifically key supplies indexed to the U.S dollar. He said:
- “This constrained our recurring EBIT growth. As a result, Q3 EBIT was 19.3% lower than last year. Without the FX impact, our Q3 EBIT improved by 8% vs last year. Our 9M 2022 results underscore the Company’s resilience, with 23.1% growth in Net Sales, 17.5% growth in EBIT and 11.2% growth in Net Income.
- “We remain committed to our sustainability ambitions by utilizing affordable clean energy in our operations and optimizing our green logistics strategy; among other initiatives that are in alignment with our net zero pledge journey’’.
