Nestle Plc, maker of nutritional, health and wellness product recently made public its second quarter forecast result for Q1, 2012 on the floor of the Nigerian Stock Exchange, showing that it is eyeing N23 billion turnover, its First quarter, 2012.The company also expects a N3.6 billion profit before tax, just as it expects a N2.7 billion profit after tax in the same period of 2012.A close look at the company's most recent result, show that the company made a N70 billion turnover in Q3 2011, compared to the N57 billion, it made in the corresponding period of 2010, indicating a significant 24 percent rise.Also profit before tax witnessed a marginal 4 percent drop to N12 billion from N13 billion, while profit after tax, rose by a marginal 0.4 percent from N9.14 billion to N9.10 billion.Nestle's cash and bank balances witnessed a sharp 58 percent dive to N1.2 billion in Q3 2011, from N3.0 billion in the corresponding period of 2010, while short term borrowings of the company grew by a steep 130 percent from N3.3 billion to N8 billion.As part of efforts to compete favorably an position itself for growth, the company early this year inaugurated a new factory in Ogun State,(Flower Gate) with an investment of N12 billion.Paul Bulcke, Nestl ceo, while commenting on the factory said , it is key to Nestl's growth in Nigeria and in Africa as a whole and will be initially dedicated to the production of MAGGI products. This new factory is Nestl's 27th in Africa and will further strengthen Nestl Nigeria's role as the largest culinary manufacturing operation on the African continentProducts adapted to meet the specific requirements of emerging consumers in terms of price, accessibility, format, 'and nutritional benefits and they are a key driver for the future growth of Nestl's operations in Nigeria. Many of the maggi products in Africa are iodine fortified in order to help combat iodine deficiencies among the local population.'In a tough environment, we continued to build our capabilities and positions for the future while maintaining strong growth across regions and categories. The constant renovation of our existing product portfolio together with our strong pipeline of game-changing innovations resulted in many market share gains. A high rate of innovation also requires significant consumer-facing marketing support. For the year as a whole, in spite of input cost pressures, we expect to slightly over-perform against our long-term organic growth range of 5-6% and continue to strive for a margin improvement in constant currencies'.Buckle further said, In the first nine months of 2011, the Nestl Group's organic growth was 7.3%, including 4.1% real internal growth and pricing of 3.2%. Foreign exchange decreased sales by 15.1%, and divestitures (mainly Alcon) net of acquisitions by 5.7%.Organic growth of 7.3% for the nine months constitutes broad-based outperformance against the growth rates in our categories and markets. The organic growth was 5.8% in the Americas, 5.0% in Europe and 13.1% in Asia, Oceania and Africa. Developed markets grew 4.0%, while emerging markets achieved around 13.1% organic growth..
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