Nigerian Breweries

Nigerian Breweries spent much of 2024 in genuine distress, with a ₦145 billion net loss and a Rights Issue launched to keep the balance sheet from buckling. The 2025 financial year reversed that story completely: group revenue jumped 35% to ₦1.47 trillion, operating profit roughly tripled, and the company returned to profitability with a net profit of ₦99.1 billion, its strongest bottom-line performance in close to a decade (earnings per share moved from a loss of 1,207 kobo to a positive 319 kobo). MD Thibaut Boidin, who took over in July 2025, told journalists 'on all key metrics, we outperformed expectations.'

Much of that recovery traces back to deleveraging: the 2024 Rights Issue eliminated FX-denominated debt, cutting net finance costs by roughly 83% year-on-year. By the first half of 2026, Nigerian Breweries had eliminated its interest-bearing debt position entirely and returned retained earnings to positive territory for the first time in years, with H1 2026 profit before tax up 18% to ₦156.3 billion, though profit after tax rose a more modest 5% to ₦92.95 billion as a sharply higher tax charge ate into the gain.

The company also completed its full acquisition and integration of Distell Wines and Spirits Nigeria in 2025, repositioning itself as what it now calls a 'total beverage company.' Star, Gulder, Legend, Heineken, Maltina, and Amstel Malta remain the core of the business, but the portfolio now stretches into wines, spirits, and ciders, giving Nigerian Breweries broader shelf presence and, management hopes, more resilience against any single category's swings. Boidin has spoken openly about building a 'shock-absorption framework' for exchange rate, inflation, and geopolitical scenario planning, pointing to Heineken's global balance sheet as a structural advantage over purely domestic rivals: 'our majority shareholder is Heineken, and that gives us strong financial power.'