Eveready to lose industry listing at stock exchange

Eveready’s Jackson Mutua (right) and Justin Watling of Clorox Africa sign a distribution deal. FILE PHOTO | NMG 

By HERBLING DAVID

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Summary

• The NSE will move Eveready East Africa to the commercial and services class after the company transformed into a trading firm importing and retailing batteries and personal care products.
• The firm last year sold a 7.5-acre factory land and booked a gain of Sh397.3 million from the disposal.
• Closure of the battery factory effectively means that Eveready is no longer a manufacturing firm and leaves the category with nine firms.

Eveready East Africa will be demoted from the manufacturing category at the Nairobi Securities Exchange after the firm shut down its battery plant in Nakuru in September 2014.

The NSE will now move Eveready to the commercial and services class after the company transformed into a trading firm importing and retailing batteries and personal care products.

“The exchange is in the process of reclassifying the company to the commercial and services sector which will be effected from June 1, 2017,” NSE told the Business Daily.

Eveready in October 2014 announced that low sales due to illegal imports of cheap batteries and high energy costs had forced it to shut its Nakuru production factory in favour of importing batteries from Energizer.

The firm last year sold a 7.5-acre factory land and booked a gain of Sh397.3 million from the disposal. Closure of the battery factory effectively means that Eveready is no longer a manufacturing firm and leaves the category with nine firms.

READ: Eveready loses court battle for Energizer distribution contract

Eveready has also revealed that it lost a prime contract to exclusively import and distribute Energizer products such as flashlights, batteries, Schick razors, and accessories.

The Nakuru-based firm has now turned to selling automotive-type lead acid batteries, as well as lighting products such as industrial bulbs, fluorescent tubes and energy efficient bulbs under the brand name Turbo and Turbo Plus.

It also retails bleaches, fabric enhancers and laundry detergents under the Clorox brand.

The trading firm reported a Sh364.9 million net profit in the six months to March 2017, compared to the Sh58.9 million loss posted during a similar period a year earlier, boosted by property disposal.

This saw shareholders book a Sh1 per share dividend windfall after a long dividend drought. Eveready had last paid a dividend of Sh0.45 in 2007.