Covid-19 deflates CAP’s Q1 performance

The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) has discharged additional 796 people after testing negative to Coronavirus (COVID-19) in the aftermath of their treatment. The NCDC disclosed this on its official Twitter handle on Saturday. It stated that the nation’s total recoveries had increased to 156,250 in the past 24 hours while active cases stood at 7,823. “Our discharges today include a backlog of 795 community recoveries in Adamawa managed in line with guidelines,” it said. The agency said it registered 30 new COVID-19 infections in three states, which raised the total number of cases in the country to 165,370. It said that out of the 30 new infections recorded, Lagos had 21, Adamawa, eight and Rivers, one. NCDC said no new death was recorded from the disease which had already claimed 2,065 lives nationwide. It added that the number of deaths recorded from COVID-19 had declined recently with only four deaths recorded in the past 24 days. The agency said since the pandemic broke out in February 2020 the nation had carried out 1,939,165 tests across the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT). It stated that a multi-sectoral national Emergency Operations Centre (EOC), activated at Level 3, had continued to coordinate the national response activities The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Nigeria has continued to report low number of infections since February 2021. Nigeria recently banned non-Nigerian travellers from Brazil, India and Turkey from entering Nigeria as the countries were experiencing a surge in COVID-19 infections. Brazil and India reported about half of the total number of new COVID-19 cases recorded globally last week, according to the World Health Organisation. While working to prevent imported COVID-19 cases, Nigeria is also continuing with its vaccination programme. More than 1.6 million Nigerians have received their first shots of the Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine. The country received the vaccine through COVAX, a UN-backed effort, that promises access to free vaccines for up to 20 per cent of participating countries’ populations. Also, the country received 100,000 doses of Covishield COVID-19 vaccine from the Indian government. The country has so far received about 4.1 million doses of vaccines.

By Peter Egwuatu

The COVID-19  pandemic has affected the performance of Chemical and Allied Products Plc (CAP), in the first quarter of 2021, Q1’21, though its operating expenses, OPEX, improved by 258 bases points, bps or 23.3 per cent from 25.8 per cent  in the corresponding period of 2020, Q1’20.

A review of the Company’s unaudited results released to the Nigerian Exchange Group, NXG, for the first quarter ended March 31, 2021 showed that the revenue of N2.1 billion was lower than Q1’20 by 9.5 per cent while the gross profit was N703 million, a decline by 39.9 per cent against N1.167 billion in Q1’20 with gross margin of 33.5 per cent.

Other performance  indicators showed that the  company recorded Profit Before Tax, PBT of N299 million, down from N672 million in Q1’20, with PBT margin of 14.3 per cent.

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Commenting on the performance the Managing Director, David Wright, stated: “In the first quarter of 2021, we saw the biggest impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on our business. Increased global demand for chemicals driven by the economic rebound in Asia and feedstock challenges, with several suppliers declaring Force Majeures, resulted in a global shortage of raw materials. This significantly impacted product availability in the first quarter of the year. In addition, there was a scarcity premium placed on all available raw materials which eroded gross margin across various product lines.

“We have taken steps to secure alternative raw material sources and are increasing inventory levels to mitigate against further disruptions. As such, we expect a strong recovery in the remaining quarters of the year.

Our focus remains on creating shareholder value and we will continue to pursue attractive growth opportunities to achieve this.”

The post Covid-19 deflates CAP’s Q1 performance appeared first on Vanguard News.

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