Flour Mills keeps making giant strides in the food value chain under Omoboyede Olusanya
As part of its strategy for the entire food chain, Flour Mills Nigeria Plc developed what it called a “farm-to-table” model, a backward integration strategy. This ensures that farmers are provided with inputs, know-how, crops, and raw materials for the easy sourcing of raw materials for production.
One of the challenges with this strategy is that it may face competition with other FMCG companies such as Nestle, Unilever, Dangote Sugar, and Guinness Nigeria Plc, which have recently adopted this strategy. It gives farmers more bargaining power.
Although it is expensive to operate, this has helped Flour mills reduce their production costs and exposure to unnecessary foreign exchange risks.
About Flour Mills Plc
Flour Mills of Nigeria (FMN) is a diversified pan-Nigerian agribusiness company that is in the production, distribution, and supply chain network with a broad basket of food products. The company has a diverse product portfolio with its flagship brand Golden Penny Flour.
It was founded in 1960 by George S. Coumantaros (d. 2016), a Greek-American businessman as a private limited company which later became a public company in 1978. The founder’s son, John George Coumantaros, is the chairman and former CEO.
The company is currently a holding company with a vertically integrated business model.
Products and Services
Its products are divided into four major divisions: Food Division, Agro-Allied, and Sugar and Support Services.
Its food category includes pasta and noodles, ball foods, and flour products. Agro-allied products include feeds and proteins, edible oils and fats, starches, sweeteners, agro-inputs, and distributions. For services, the company is involved in logistics which includes Bagco, ABTL, and Golden Transport Company.
Its product portfolio cuts across Golden Penny Flour, Golden Penny Ball Food And Cereal, Golden Penny Pasta And Noodles, Golden Sugar Company, Golden Penny Vegetable Oil & Margarine, Golden Fertilizer, FMN Agro-Allied, Bagco Total Package Solution, etc.
Board of Directors/ Management Team
FMN has an extensive Board of Directors.
- John George Coumataros – Chairman
Coumantaros is a Greek-American businessman who is the chairman of the board of directors of Flour Mills of Nigeria Plc(FMN). He graduated from Yale University with a B.A. Degree in History in 1984. He also sits on the Board of several international companies.
- Omoboyede Olusanya, GMD / CEO
Omoboyede Oyebolanle Olusanya became the GMD/CEO in 2020. He trained as an engineer and a computer scientist. He graduated from the University of Lagos and obtained his Masters’ at the Universities of Liverpool and Manchester, England where he obtained his M.Sc. Computer Science and M.Sc. Environmental Civil Engineering respectively. Boye has also attended several management programs at the Harvard, London and Lagos Business Schools.
He is a member of the Nigerian Society of Engineers (NSE), Council for the Regulation of Engineering in Nigeria (COREN), Institute of Directors (IOD) and Institute of Highway and Transportation, UK (IHT).
Other members of the management team are:
- Devlin Hainsworth, MD, Foods Division
- Nassib Raffoul, Chief Operating Officer, Agro-allied
- Jack Coach, Flour Operations Director
- Yiannis Katsichtis, Supply Chain Director
- Anders Kristiansson, Group Chief Finance Officer
- Wale Adediran, Human Resource Director
- Narhari Prasad Tripathi, Director of Manufacturing and Technical Services
- Vlassis Liakouris, Management Information Analyst
- Russell Prior, GM, Bagco
- Walton Percival-Deigh, Business Assurance Director
- Sadiq Usman, Deputy COO, Agro-allied
- Maniatis John, Deputy General Manager / Director, Golden Sugar Company
- Joseph Umolu, Company Secretary / Director, Legal Services
Achievement
- In April 2022, the company launched a wholly Made-in-Nigeria Brown Sugar to its product portfolio
- Its 2021 operational review performance stated that the Group achieved impressive top-line growth for the year, aided by gains from its Agro-allied turnaround strategy.
- The company has invested more than N150 billion over the past ten years to execute its core business strategy to aid the agricultural sector.
- The company has expanded across all value chains resulting in an average revenue gain of 34% across all business sectors
- The company announced a 47% increase in revenue to N523bn in its 2021 half-year report
- As part of her Corporate Social Responsibility activities, the company commissioned a newly built vocational center for special needs children at the Methodist Primary School in Apapa in 2017
Performance
The company has a market capitalization of 111.94bn NGN and its current share price is N27.3. The first quarter results of 2022 show a revenue of N1,163,802,851 and a profit before tax of around N41 billion.
The global wheat value chain disruptions caused by the Russia-Ukraine war, left prices of wheat products to soar high. If this trend continues, the company may get substitutes or alternatives such as millet flour, cassava flour, etc.
This presents an opportunity for Flour Mills to consider including that in its product portfolio. Perhaps that could mitigate the risks associated with the threat to wheat prices.