Accra Brewery sees growth in profit

Accra, Aug. 23, GNA - Mr Grant Liversage, Managing Director of Accra Brewery Limited (ABL), on Thursday said the company benefited from a five per cent growth rate in the beer market to attain strong sales growth and profit.

Mr Liversage who made this known at the company's 32nd Annual General Meeting in Accra, said the company recorded its strong sales growth through Stone Strong Lager, while Castle Milk Stout and Club also started showing signs of recovery in the latter part of the year. He said in the last quarter of 2006, the company repositioned Club Premium Lager as "Ghana's authentic lager, which seemed to have resonated well with the consumer".

"Sales volumes during the year under review posted a 17.3 per cent growth over the previous year and over nine per cent growth against budget," he said.

The Managing Director said ABL's revenue was also up by 23.2 per cent due to the sales volume growth, adding that input cost also increased due to inflationary effect of fuel price increases and depreciation of the cedis against other major currencies. Profit before tax was 3.55 billion cedis in the year ended March, 2007, compared with a loss of 5.44 billion cedis for the same previous production year.

Mr Liversage was optimistic that the company could achieve more saying "we believe that we are well placed with the right brands, plants and people capabilities to take advantage of any positive momentum". Mr Joseph Kwasi Agyeman, Chairman of ABL Board, stated that the company performed relatively better than the previous year.

He said ABL also managed to reduce its borrowing costs through better working capital management and thus reduce interest rate. Mr Robin Goetzsche, Board Member, was elected as Vice Chairman for the Board of Directors to replace Mr Craig McDougall, who has resigned.