Presco Plc, the oil palm producer that is a top runner in growing shareholders’ wealth, may gain further speed with its new strategic engagement for project execution.
The company has driven the bottom-line growth at a galloping speed in four years, from less than N13 billion in 2022 to over N138 billion at the close of the 2025 financial year.
The company’s unaudited financial report for the full year ended December 2025 shows that the closing profit for the year is only slightly below the three preceding years’ profit put together.
Yet, the SIAT NV-run management is shaping up for a big harvest season of expanded palm plantation and enhanced processing capacity, accomplished in the previous phase.
To this end, leadership has transitioned from the previous management of the Belgian agro-industrial group under Felix Nwabuko, whose tenure focused on a major capacity-building strategy in both palm plantation development and processing capabilities.
Presco’s mature palm plantation is in excess of 26,000 hectares and counting, according to official estimates.
The company’s processing capacity was upgraded in 2016 from 40-60 tonnes of fresh fruit bunches per hour to 90 tonnes per hour. It also boasts 500 tonnes refinery/fractionation of refined products per day, five times the existing capacity of 100 tonnes per day.
The leadership shift brings in Adewale Arikawe as chief executive officer to oversee the execution phase of the strategy – turning the big capacity into wealth. He takes charge of all SIAT’s subsidiaries, a position that empowers him to drive growth across borders. His mandate is to sharpen strategy execution, accelerate growth and elevate performance standards across SIAT’s African subsidiaries.
Group revenue is getting diversified across geography, and new market entries can be expected to provide the growth locomotive for the new phase. Germany and Austria contributed to group revenue for the first time in 2025 with sales of N5.3 billion and N537 million, respectively.
Ghana turned in sales revenue in excess of N80 billion in the year, close to two and two-thirds times the preceding year’s figure of N30 billion.
The hard drive for top-line growth saw sales revenue climb by 60 per cent to over N331 billion in 2025 after surging upward by 102.6 per cent the year before. Strong sales are supported by other operating income that grew by 73.5 per cent to N6.8 billion, gain on biological assets of nearly N33 billion and net gain in foreign exchange of N4.3 billion.
Another round of upscaling of capacity is underway with new money injection expected to develop new plantations, expand processing capacity with new technology upgrades big enough to rev up Nigeria’s position in the regional market for edible oils and specialty fats.
The company acquired 10,000 hectares of land for new plantations in Cross River State in December 2025. In process is a $200 million project in Abia State for a 14,000-hectare plantation with new processing facility. The company also holds a controlling 52 percent share in Ghana Oil Palm Development Company.
The company’s cost-income model is fitted to keep cost increases well below the gains in revenue, which places Presco in the top profit margin bracket in Nigeria’s industrial sector.
Cost of sales grew by 52.4 percent to under N103 billion compared to the 60 percent growth in sales revenue. The cost saving here boosted gross profit margin and powered an increase of 63 percent in gross profit to N228 billion.
Further cost saving was extracted from administrative expenses, which increased by 48.5 percent to N53.7 billion and so did selling and distribution cost that grew by 29 percent to N4 billion.
Comparatively low production cost is the company’s key operating advantage that draws from its dependence on locally sourced raw materials. Added to that is low selling and distribution expenses that reflect the high demand and a ready market for the company’s products.
Strengthening profit delivery further in 2025 is the absence of a monetary loss that stood as high as N12.7 billion in 2024.
The cost and income changes in the year produced significant gains in margins that lifted operating profit a clear 70 percent to close at N214.4 billion for the year.
One cost element however went out of the strict controls in the year and that is cost of finance that jumped close to three and half times to N43.6 billion. The increase follows long term borrowings of N146 billion in the year, which jerked up interest bearing debts from N58.3 billion in 2024 to N164 billion at the end of 2025.
Presco closed the 2025 operations with a pre-tax profit of N178.6 billion, an increase from N113.5 billion in the previous year and after-tax profit rose from N78 billion to N138 billion over the period. Net profit margin stretched upward from 37.6 percent in the preceding year to 41.7 percent in 2025.
Earnings per share advanced from N74.01 to N134.38 over the same period. The company paid a cash dividend of N42 per share for its 2024 operations and shareholders can hope for enhanced dividend pay-out for the 2025 trading when the audited accounts are released.
