The latest financial statements of the firms show that the trade and other receivables of NASCON rose by 138.9 percent to N27.7 billion in 2023 from N11.6 billion in 2022.

BUA Foods’ trade and other receivables increased by 67.6 percent to N199.9 billion from N119.3 billion while Dangote Cement grew by 61 percent to N73.22 billion.

Unilever Nigeria Plc recorded a 47.3 percent growth in total trade and other receivables, followed by Cadbury Nigeria Plc with 40.3 percent. Others are International Breweries Plc (38.2 percent), Lafarge Africa Plc (24.4 percent), Nestle Plc (23.9 percent) and Dangote Sugar Refinery (22.7 percent).

BUA Cement Plc recorded a negative growth of 52 percent in total trade and other receivables. Nigerian Breweries Plc had a marginal 1.4 percent increase.

“The slowdown in the growth of trade and other receivables balances shows companies want to be careful of bad debt where people can’t pay because they don’t have the money and the company will have to write those off,” Oluebube Nwosu, consumer goods analyst at Vetiva Capital, said.

Over the past 10 months, the inflation rate in Africa’s biggest economy has accelerated to a record high largely on the back of the Federal Government reforms including the removal of petrol subsidy and naira devaluation.

Data from the National Bureau of Statistics, Nigeria’s headline inflation rate rose for the 14th consecutive time in February to 31.70 percent from 29.90 percent in the previous month.