Chairman of Nigerian Breweries Plc, Juliet Anammah, said the company would not necessarily reduce its asset portfolio to reduce its cost of operation.

Rather, Anamnah, the brewer, would adopt ‘asset right’, which would require continuing facilities and assets that were required to meet the needs of its market and expand it. NB is heavy on assets with a huge impact on cost.

Asked whether NB would consider going light to reduce cost to strengthen its balance sheet, the chairman said there was a limit to what is possible as NB would need to maintain certain production, logistics and market assets to meet the needs of its market as Nigeria’s biggest brewer.

The company will adopt “asset right” as it will no longer be cost-minimising if it sells assets that would hurt its operation, she stated.

“The question is, what are our critical assets? What are the capacity utilisations of our assets?” she insisted.

NB had seen one of its toughest financial years in 2023, with its naira devaluation loss hitting N153 billion. But last year, it broke a two-year streak to return to profitability.

Anammah, who assumed office as the first female chairman of the nearly 80-year-old brewing giant, has her eyes set on delivering an impressive 2025

She told journalists yesterday, at her first major media engagement in Lagos, that the leadership would build its core strategy around “what it knows” and adapt to the changing macroeconomic environment amidst extreme uncertainty.

“We may not know what will happen in the next three months and what the tariff situation will be, as well as how that will affect the FX market. But we know how to brew the best beer. We will build our strategy on those things we know and model changes in the economy on our cost, profit projection, revenue and adjust,” she noted.

While the company cannot do without FX, she said, it would continue to invest aggressively in its backward integration programmes to reduce its exogenous risk exposure and continue to build a more profitable business.

The board chairman also described 2025 as a year of “recovery”, noting that the company would focus on stabilising its operation and consolidating on the expansion drive of the last few years.

But should the market speed up and the current low purchasing power pivot significantly to create irresistible growth opportunities, she noted, nothing stops the company from approaching the shareholders for possible fresh fundraising.