Crown Paints Group’s Pre-Tax Profit Jumps By 26 Percent

Crown Paints Group’s regional hubs across Tanzania, Uganda, and Rwanda wherein the company has invested in local manufacturing with satellite plants, local marketing and dealer networks posted an improved performance in 2016 to help grow the company’s revenues by 9 percent to 7.3billion shillings.

The Group’s profit before tax grew by 26 percent to 272 million shillings from 216.7 million shillings in 2015 with business in the regional subsidiaries growing by an average 25 percent by end of December 2016.

“The regional expansion is now bearing fruits with all our subsidiaries in Rwanda and Tanzania and Uganda, which are now fully operational, posting improved performance. We expect this growth to be sustained as the local manufacturing plants based in Arusha, Mwanza and Dar-e-Salam continue to quickly turn around customer orders and also offers a very wide choice of products in these markets,” said Crown Paints Group CEO Mr. Rakesh Rao.

According to Mr. Rao, the steady expansion of the construction and property sector helped grow the company’s sales with the stability of the currency in Kenya and Tanzania also helping keep costs at an even level.

“We have, for example, seen a rise in demand for our eco-friendly Zero VOCs (Volatile Organic Compounds) products as more developers continue to be more mindful of the environment which has led to an increase in green building technologies in the region,” said Mr. Rao.

During the period under the review, the paint manufacturer’s earning per share increased to 1.85 shillings per share from 0.43 shillings per share in 2015.  Crown Paints directors have recommended a dividend payment of 12 percent or 60 cents per share for the year ended 31 December 2016.

The company is expecting to introduce new innovative products in the region by the end of 2017 with which it expects to further boost the company’s earnings moving forward. Yesterday Crown became the first paint manufacturer in the region to introduce a comprehensive loyalty program targeted at painters and ‘fundis’ aspiring to be professional painters.