Business
Dangote Flour Mills: Shareholders Approve 20k Dividend
Following the impressive result posted by Dangote Flour Mills, a dividend of 20 Kobo per share was approved by the shareholders of the company last week in Lagos during the company Annual General Meeting.
Dangote Flour Group has announced a net profit of N2.9 billion for the year ending December 31, 2008, representing a 400 per cent increase compared to N561.55 million posted in 2007. Its turnover increased from N43.13 billion to N47.92 billion from 2007 to 2008 financial year.
Group profits in 2008 also leaped from N676 million in 2007 to N3.2 billion in 2008 implying N1.4 billion group attributable profits from subsidiaries.
The expansion plan is boosted by the group’s recent unaudited result for the nine-month period ending September 30, 2009 indicating some exiting prospects. The results show that turnover for the period was N46.95 billion surpassing the whole turnover realised in the financial year of 2008. Profits after tax for the nine month period were N7.6 billion, an increase of 155 per cent over the financial year 2008.
As such, the group is proposing an interim dividend of 30 Kobo per share based on the nine months unaudited accounts of the group for the period ended September 2009. Taking a peep into some of the challenges the global environment may pose to the company in the year ahead.
According to Ahaji Aliko Dangote, chairman of the company, said he is confident that the group is financially well insulated to cope with any challenges that may arise from these crises.
Dangote noted that the year 2008 did not go without the usual business challenges, some of which include; increase of the prices of raw materials and the inability of the company to pass on these increases to the consumers.
He stress that the financial year under-review was difficult for businesses both globally and locally, as the global financial meltdown imposed challenges on the business environment through reduced access to both local and foreign capital, reduced purchasing power and sustained high price of wheat.
“The strategy adopted by the flour giant to overcome the difficult operating environment was to focus on internal efficiency to cut down on other areas of costs, the effect of which made the company profit before taxation to increase from N376 million in 2007 to N1.8 billion,” he said.
Cornerstone of Financial Services
A survey of more than 1 000 global finance leaders undertaken by digital payment network Ripple shows that 72% of respondents believe they need to offer a digital asset solution to remain competitive.
According to Ripple, leaders from the banking, fintech, corporate and asset management sector have made it clear that the “digital asset revolution is happening now”.
“Digital assets are quickly becoming a cornerstone of financial services, underpinned by progressive regulation, growing interest from Tier-1 banks, a steady consumer shift from banks to fintech providers, and booming stablecoin adoption,” Ripple says.
The survey was conducted in early 2026 and the findings released in March.
Stablecoin Boon or Bane?
Ripple has experienced significant success in the stablecoin sector since launching its Ripple USD (RLUSD) stablecoin in 2024.
With a market cap of $1.56 billion, it is considered a major regulated player in the market.
No doubt the platform was pleased to learn through its own survey that financial leaders were most bullish about stablecoins.
Roughly three-quarters of respondents believed they could boost cash-flow efficiency and unlock trapped working capital.
Ripple noted that finance leaders were thinking about stablecoins as more than “just a new way to execute payments”; instead, they viewed them as effective tools for treasury management.
In March 2026, Ripple began testing a new trade finance model built around RLUSD in a bid to increase the speed of cross-border payments.
The pilot initiative, developed alongside supply chain finance company Unloq [https://unloq.com], is running on the XRP Ledger inside a testing framework developed by the Monetary Authority of Singapore.
The Asian city-state is one of the platform’s biggest growth markets.
The idea behind the project is to see whether stablecoin-based settlement can streamline trade finance, too often hampered by reliance on intermediaries and slow reconciliation.
The only potential drawback is that if the initiative takes off, the Ripple to USD price could be negatively affected.
Ripple has always championed its native XRP token as a bridge asset, the “middleman” in the process of a financial institution turning dollars in the US into pounds in the UK, for example.
Ripple converts dollars into XRP and then back into pounds.
If RLUSD can do exactly the same thing, questions will be asked about XRP’s relevance.
That is a bridge Ripple will have to cross if it gets to that point.
Tokenisation Partners
Another interesting finding from Ripple’s survey is that most banks and asset managers are seeking tokenisation partners to help execute their strategies.
Some 89% of respondents said digital asset storage and custody were top priority. “Token servicing/lifecycle management also ranks highly for banks at 82%, while asset managers place greater emphasis on primary distribution at 80%,” Ripple found.
The survey also revealed that just more than half of fintechs and financial institutions want an infrastructure provider that can offer a “one-stop-shop solution”. This rose to 71% among corporate financial leaders.
Ripple attributes this to institutions and firms wanting uncomplicated, cohesive systems.
Infrastructure Rules
In its final analysis, Ripple says companies across the board are looking for partners and solutions that are “secure, compliant, battle-tested and that enable growth and execution”.
“The message is clear: infrastructure decisions made today will shape competitive positioning tomorrow.”
No surprise that this is precisely where Ripple is placing much of its focus.