Unga Group shareholders will go without a dividend for a seventh straight year after the flour and animal feed maker chose to plough its earnings back into the business, despite posting its strongest profit growth in years.
The Nairobi Securities Exchange-listed company said net profit rose 82.2 percent to Sh404.5 million in the year ended June 30, 2026, from Sh222 million a year earlier.
“No dividend is recommended for the year, consistent with the priority of reinvesting in capacity and margin recovery,” the company said in its results statement.
Sales up Sh4.3bn
Revenue grew to Sh30.45 billion from Sh26.13 billion, a rise of 16.5 percent. Profit before tax more than doubled to Sh743.68 million from Sh340.82 million, while earnings per share increased to Sh3.27 from Sh1.73. That works out to a 118.2 percent jump in pretax profit and an 89 percent rise in earnings per share.
Kenyan Wall Street reported that the improvement was supported by higher sales volumes, better operating efficiency and lower financing costs.
Business Daily reported that the gross profit margin improved to 3.08 percent from 2.7 percent.
The full-year figure hides a weaker second half. The company earned Sh523.17 million in the six months to December 2025, which implies a net loss of about Sh118.61 million in the January to June period, Kenyan Wall Street calculated.
ApexHub Insights noted that operating cash flow turned negative in the year and that new borrowing filled the gap, leaving the balance sheet more leveraged.
A change of stance on payouts
Unga last paid a dividend for the year to June 2019, when it gave shareholders Sh0.5 a share, or Sh37.8 million in total, from a net profit of Sh544.8 million. It froze payouts the following year and has kept them suspended through both loss-making and profitable years since.
The company has no publicly stated dividend policy. It had previously said it would resume payments once it returned to profitability and strong cash generation. When it swung back to a Sh222 million profit in 2025, it described itself as being on a recovery path that would support future payouts.
On Business Daily’s calculations, the latest profit would cover a payout at the 2019 rate of Sh0.5 a share more than ten times.
The results were issued by order of the board and signed by company secretary W. Jumba on October 15, 2026, according to Investreet.
The decision comes as investors weigh other consumer-facing listings on the bourse, including the Quickmart initial public offer.
