Presco Plc, a firm that produces specialty fats and oils today reported an 83 percent surge in profits for the full year 2020 period, a good outing amid a year marred by the coronavirus pandemic.
The company specializes in the cultivation of oil palm and in the extraction, refining and fractionation of crude oil into finished products. It possesses oil palm plantations, a palm oil mill, a palm kernel crushing plant and a vegetable oil refining plant in Nigeria.
Revenues for Presco for 2020 increased by 21 percent to N23.9 billion as the land border closure enforced by the President Muhammadu Buhari administration meant there was little room for smuggling to dampen sales.
Despite the stellar earnings, there was no dividend declared for the period, a sign of the unease by Presco about how long the good times will last.
Meanwhile, net cash and cash equivalents at the end of the period fell to –N4.735 billion from –N1.158 billion in the earlier period.
Presco has benefited from the border crackdown which has boosted sales and curbed smuggling tremendously but there has been a gradual re-opening of Nigeria’s land borders which should impact sales going forward.
Presco stock has a one-year return of 56 percent.