Sefalana made more money this year, with profit before tax jumping 24% to P550.1 million for the year ended April 2025.
A big part of that came from South Africa, where a special investment brought in P117.7 million. This is about one-fifth of all the profit. Excluding this, calculations show that profit would have been P432.4 million, a little less than last year’s P442.8 million.
“The big one contribution this year is that South African investment. The P102 million fair value gain on the preference share is a huge one,”
finance director Mohamed Osman told analysts when presenting the results.
By the end of the first six months to 27 October 2024, Sefalana had made P219 million in profit before tax. By year-end, it had grown to P550 million, meaning most of the extra profit came in the second half. Profit after tax rose from P158 million mid-year to P426 million at year-end.
“We didn’t have that at the half-year,”
Osman said, referring to SA gains.
“The profits at the half-year were the best by the time. At that point in time, we weren’t sure where we would get to at the end of the year because things were tough in the market six months ago.”
“But we powered on and we focused on margin improvement, so we didn’t give away too much margin,”
he added.
The group’s gross profit (GP) margin — the share of each pula kept after paying for goods — stayed at 7.1%, even with strong competition. This meant absolute gross profit rose 14% to P792 million.
Keeping GP at 7.1% helped “us maintain the numbers,” Osman said. Sefalana says every 1% change in GP equals about P100 million.
Botswana still drives the engine:
- Trading consumer goods: +P17.6 million
- Manufacturing: +P15.9 million
- Property: +P1.3 million
- Other trading: −P0.5 million
Total Botswana gain: +P34.3 million
Neighbouring highlights and dips:
- Namibia: +P21.3 million (to P122.9 million)
- Lesotho: +P9.1 million (to P29.5 million)
- Zambia: −P12.2 million (to P3.3 million)
- Australia: −P6.6 million
