THE global economic crisis took a toll on Nigeria’s largest 100 companies in 2009. According to the 2009 edition of BusinessWorld 100, an annual publication of BusinessWorld newspaper that focuses on the performance of publicly-held companies in Nigeria, the fortunes of Nigeria’s largest 100 (quoted) companies declined seriously during the year under review.
The most affected of all the performance indices of Nigeria’s top companies is profit. On aggregate, the top 100 companies posted a whopping loss of N961.35 billion compared to a handsome profit of N508.49 billion in 2008 and N319.92 billion in 2007. The major contributors to the loss are the banks, especially the ones bailed out by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) in 2009. After making provision for loan loss, all the rescued banks posted huge losses.
And after a quantum leap from N10,751.84 billion in 2007 to N17,980.69 billion in 2008, the aggregate assets of the 100 largest companies declined to N16,642.93 billion in 2009. This decline was mainly accounted for by the shrinking of the balance sheet of banks due to provision for toxic assets.
Total shareholders’ funds of the top companies which rose from N1,915.13 billion in 2007 to N3,345.38 billion in 2008 decreased to N1,630.86 billion in 2009, while the number of people employed by the companies came down from 170,249 in 2008 to 142,274 in 2009. Market capitalization of the companies also dropped from N5,292.76 billion in 2008 to N3,981.65 billion in 2009.
First Bank of Nigeria Plc, with total assets of N2,172.35 billion emerged as Nigeria’s largest company, displacing Zenith Bank Plc. Nigerian Breweries Plc emerged the most profitable company in Nigeria while Oando Plc and Julius Berger Nigeria Plc remained the highest revenue earner and the highest employer of labour, respectively.