Our reporter / The exodus of companies from Nigeria over hostile operating environment continued on Tuesday with Plc Guinness announced plan sell off its controlling shares to Singaporean conglomerate Tolaram Group.
After operating in the country since 1950, the brewery giant is quitting after enduring a torrid economic climate on the back of President Bola Tinubu’s economic policies.
The brewery brand recorded a staggering N61.9 billion loss after tax between July 2023 and March 2024, just a few months after Tinubu floated the naira in an effort to unify the currency’s value on the official and parallel foreign exchange markets.
The move caused many multinational companies to suffer huge financial setbacks including Guinness Nigeria whose N61.7 billion loss after tax in Q3 was a 1000 per cent increase from the N5.9 billion revenue generated in the same period last year.
The loss exacerbated by the naira’s continued downward trend may have informed Diageo, Guinness’ parent company, to sell its 58.02 per cent majority stake to the Singaporean group.
“Under the terms of an agreement signed today, 11 June 2024, Tolaram will acquire Diageo’s 58.02% shareholding in Guinness Nigeria royalty agreements for the continued production of the Guinness brand and its locally manufactured Diageo ready-to-drink and mainstream spirits brands,” the company said in a statement Tuesday.
Guinness Nigeria Plc, a public limited liability company quoted on the Nigerian Stock Exchange, was incorporated on April 29, 1950, as a trading company importing Guinness Stout from Dublin.
The Guinness brand has operated in Nigeria since 1950, but with Tolaram’s controlling stake acquisition expected to conclude by 2025, the global brewery brand will have spent 75 years in Nigeria.
In the statement, Guinness said the firm would leave Nigeria next year and hand over to a third-party venture.
“The transaction is expected to be completed during fiscal 2025, subject to obtaining the requisite regulatory approvals in Nigeria,” said the statement signed by Abidemi Ademola, Guinness’s legal director.
Diageo, however, stated that the sale of its Nigerian brand would not in any way affect its ownership of the Guinness global brand.
Diageo “will retain ownership of the Guinness brand, which will be licensed to Guinness Nigeria for the long term.”
Diageo’s exit adds to a long list of other multinational companies, like GlaxoSmithKline and Microsoft, that have left Nigeria in the last one to two years, citing the harsh economic climate as making business unprofitable.
Some of Diageo’s popular brands in Nigeria include Smirnoff Ice, Smirnoff Vodka, Orijin Bitters, Malta Guinness, Gordons Orange Sunset, and Dubic Malt.
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