Abdullahi Sule is the newly appointed acting Group Managing Director of Dangote Sugar Refinery Plc (DSR), a subsidiary of Dangote Group and Nigeria’s biggest sugar company. This was contained in the company’s notice to the Nigerian Stock Exchange at the close of last week.

The company said the appointment was approved by its board at it’s meeting on October 23, after which it became effective. It was also stated that this development is part of Dangote’s current re-positioning of operations aimed at the targeted 1.5 metric tonnes of sugar per annum. Also the entire process is aimed at increasing employment generation, while providing power to two operational sites at Adamawa and Taraba states. 

As with Dangote’s other brands, DSR plans to expand across the continent, to sell over a million metric tonnes of locally made sugar and become a global force in sugar production. Dangote Sugar Refinery recently announced a pre-tax profit of N14.22 billion for its third quarter which ended in September, 2015. A small increase, in comparison to the N13.97 billion pre-tax profit recorded a year ago. Just last week, reports showed a high turnover and profit margin for the company’s cement brand, Dangote Cement Plc.

The unaudited report of the past nine months shows a 5 percent gross profit increase from N18.63 billion last year, to N18.80 billion. Profit after tax increased to N9.34 billion from N9.15 billion in the same period in 2014. Production at Savannah Sugar, a subsidiary of the group, increased by over 300 tonnes, from 6,245 tonnes produced in 2014 to 6,610 tonnes this year.

DSR is the largest sugar refinery in sub-Saharan Africa with over 70 percent of the domestic market share and 12 billion shares outstanding. Besides the importation of raw sugar from Brazil, which is then refined at the production headquarters, the company’s subsidiary, Savannah Sugar, has a sugar production capacity of 50,000 tonnes, and plans to increase capacity to 1 million tonnes per annum.

In February 2014, Dangote’s sugar backward integration project involved the acquisition of Savannah Sugar, a large-scale sugar cane plantation and processing company; an investment that cost the company over N12 billion ($72.1 million) in terms of infrastructure and human resources.

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