Nigeria: Nigerian Breweries, a unit of Dutch brewer Heineken, has registered a 30 % drop in profits in 2004, analysts posted on April 15. The decline was attributed to falling demand and a rising input prices cost. The profit after tax of Nigerian Breweries decreased to 5.1 billion naira ($38.3 million) from 7.3 billion naira in 2003, according to its unaudited and provisional results released by the Nigerian Stock Exchange on April 15.

Although turnover rose 17 percent to 73.6 billion naira from 63 billion naira in 2003, analysts said it did not translate into earnings because of rising production costs. "Cost of production, especially energy, has been on the increase," Mike Uzor of Datatrust Consult told Reuters. "Demand for their products is falling as people are spending more on fuel and phone calls," Comfort Jumbo of Futureview Securities added.

Shares of Nigerian Breweries, the oil-producing country's biggest company by market capitalization, have slumped more than 50 % since January as investors dumped them in anticipation of the full-year results, dealers said. The shares closed 27.19 naira on Friday, April 15 from 25.90 naira on Thursday, up 5 percent, out-performing the bourse's All-Share index which rose 1.2 percent from the previous day to 21,213.84. ($ = 132.86 naira)

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