Nigeria, July 22 -- Unilever Nigeria chose to go lavish with shareholder rewards at half-year 2026, despite a paltry increase in the net profit for the period, rather than take the long view in reinvesting the bulk of the cash in its business.

According to details of its corporate results on Tuesday, the consumer goods maker is doling out N2 to shareholders for every share owned by them, making the cash distribution four times more than the payout for same period of last year.

It implies that as much as N11.5 billion, a 73.7 per cent equivalent of post-tax profit, will be allocated to equity investors for an accounting period in which the profit itself only grew by a single digit.

The Nigerian operation of the British multinational man...