By NKIRUKA NNOROM

The Board of Directors of Multi-Trex Integrated Foods Plc, processors of cocoa and other consumer-based products, has disclosed that its financial position for the year ended April 30, 2014, was badly hampered by Assets Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON) refusal to allow it access to bank loan.

Vanguard gathered that the action which resulted in company’s inability to access working capital, followed a Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN’s directive that barred all deposit money banks, DMBs, from extending fresh credit facility to any company that owed the AMCON an initial debt of N5 billion and above, following the corporation’s assumption of bad debts of DMBs.

Vanguard also gathered that the directive from the CBN came soon after AMCON concluded restructuring the company’s debt to Skye Bank Plc.

Consequently, the company ended the year under review with a negative working capital of N2.9 billion compared to N929 million employed in equivalent period in 2012.

“Following Skye Bank Plc.’s sudden decision to sell to AMCON N8.5 billion of the company’s Owings to the bank, AMCON, in the 2012/13 financial year considered the company’s proposal and concluded the process of restructuring the loans bought by them.

“Under the loan restructuring exercise, AMCON converted N1.5 billion of the amount of the loans bought to equity.  Also, the corporation transferred N4.5 billion to preference shares while retaining the balance of N2.5 billion as a nine-year Term loan.

“However, the corporation was unable to accede to the company’s request for working capital critically needed to employ reasonable capacity of the company’s newly acquired state-of-the-art cocoa processing plant that is capable of processing up to 50,000mt of cocoa beans annually,” the Board said in an accompanying note to the statement of account to the Nigerian Stock Exchange, NSE.

“The company’s several entreaties to CBN and AMCON on the matter did not yield any fruit till the end of the year in review. Essentially, the delay in accessing working capital accounted mainly for the abysmally low capacity utilization level attained in the year, the company added.

Meanwhile, the highlight of the company’s 2013 financial performance showed that its turnover fell by 56 per cent to N1.435 billion as against N3.265 billion in the corresponding period in 2012

It recorded N2.979 billion losses before tax during the period under review compared to N1.215 billion pre-tax losses reported in the same period in 2012, representing 144. 9 percent increase, while post tax losses for the period rose to N3.02 billion from N1.25 billion, indicating 141. 6 per cent increase.

Also, the company’s total assets declined marginally by 2.6 per cent to N18.189 billion from N18.677 billion recorded in 2012.

However, the company achieved slight improvement in its cost of sales with the figure falling to N2.31 billion during the year ended April 30, 2013 from N2.93 billion in the previous year.

Multi-Trex Integrated Foods Plc undertakes processing of Cocoa Beans into Cocoa Liquor, Cocoa Butter, Cocoa Cake, and Cocoa Powder, as well as consumer-based products like Chocolate Bars, Chocolate Drinks, Chocolate Candy, Chocolate Spread, among others. The company is the first African member company of the World Cocoa Foundation.