GUINNESS GHANA, the leading total beverage business in the country, has posted its strongest performance in a financial year since it was set up some 63 years ago.
Speaking to investors during the Facts Behind the Figures event organised in conjunction with the Ghana Stock Exchange GSE) , Managing Director, Helene Weesie stressed that factors such as inflation, consistent input costs increase, and devaluation of the local currency took a toll on the performance of the business in the first half of the year.
“From November however, we have been able to course correct by putting various stringent measures in place to mitigate the FX effects, combat inflation and reduce costs. Meanwhile we continued investing in our priority brands. We turned the business around, ending the year with double digit revenue growth while maintaining our volumes. Yes, H1 was challenging, but a strong H2 helped us to deliver the best year ever for Guinness Ghana.”
According to the first female Managing Director of the company, a strong foundation has been laid for an ongoing period of challenging economic circumstances for the business.
“We have demonstrated resilience. We have demonstrated resourcefulness in adapting processes, taking swift actions and bringing different solutions to problems. We stayed close to our consumers and customers, and the increases in brand equity demonstrate that our brands are valued. As a team, we can be very proud on what we accomplished. We have truly demonstrated our Guinness Ghana motto ‘YES WE CAN’ in real time.”
Justin Mollel (Finance Director), “all of the measures that the business introduced to deal with the current economic circumstances have led to a strong set of results. We grew revenue by 36%, grew profit by over 600% and generated positive cash flow, a turnaround from a negative cashflow last year. We have delivered positive value for our cherished shareholders with a 676% increase in earnings per share, a positive return on capital and have declared dividend to our shareholders.
On her part, Sylvia Owusu-Ankomah, Corporate Relations Director for Guinness Ghana, pointed out that the performance of the business was also expressed in its work within communities across the country.
“As a business, we remain focused on championing our 10-year ESG action plan to help create a more inclusive and sustainable world. Our strategic priorities are to promote positive drinking, champion inclusion and diversity and pioneer grain-to-glass sustainability. Doing business the right way, underpins everything we do.”
“We were very deliberate about giving over 11,000 community members in the Pusiga and Jirapa assemblies access to clean water, championing a national plastic collection campaign for recycling, empowering farmers to enhance our sorghum and maize value chain and educating over 20,000 young people on the impact of underage drinking. Our focus on diversity and inclusion, particularly in ensuring we embrace gender equity across our business as well as involving women as beneficiaries of our community programs continue to be a driver of our sustainability initiatives.”
Helene Weesie summarizes, “though the economic circumstances were unprecedented, we have shown that we can weather such storm, come out with market share growth and increasing brand equity, while maintaining very high engagement of our employees. That, to us, demonstrates that we have laid a strong foundation for the future.”
