The Demerara Tobacco Company Limited registered a profit after tax of $1.68B for 2012 and also paid out dividends during the year of $1.67B.
Its 2012 Annual Report circulated yesterday at its Annual General Meeting at the Pegasus Hotel showed that taxation paid during the year amounted to $3.6B compared to $3.1B last year.
Profits have been steadily rising and the final dividend to be approved yesterday would have taken the total amount paid during the year to $77 per share. The company’s share price rocketed from around $430 in 2011 to around $830 last year.
Profit after tax of $928M in 2008 rose to $1.68B last year.
In her Managing Director’s review, Malissa Sylvester said that the company recorded turnover of $6.8B in 2012, 14.4% above the 2011 figure. Profit after tax of $1.68B was higher by 24.3% over last year’s figure.
In her statement in the report, Chairman Amanda Cavill de Zavaley said that businesses face multiple threats to their sustainability and for Demtoco the biggest is the illegal trade in tobacco products.
“…globally hundreds of billions of fake and smuggled cigarettes are sold every year. We lose market share and governments lose tax revenues and control. Many governments act too late to deal with the illicit trade and there are examples where lack of enforcement results in up to 40% or more of the market becoming illegal”, she said.
She also noted that tobacco control continues to be on the global agenda.
“We believe that as a responsible tobacco business, we can contribute information, ideas and practical measures to help regulators achieve their objectives without the negative unintended consequences of illicit trade, under-age access and increasing health risks due to the prevalence of unregulated products”, she said.
Demtoco has operated in Guyana since 1934. It no longer produces cigarettes here but simply distributes.
