Presco and Okomu Oil Palm both earned less after tax in the first half of 2026, but the reasons differ. Presco lifted pre-tax profit with help from financing, then absorbed a higher tax charge. Okomu faced lower sales and higher operating costs. Looking only at Presco’s pre-tax growth would miss that shared decline in bottom-line earnings.
This comparison uses the six months ended June 30 for both companies, with each measured against its own corresponding 2025 period. Presco’s consolidated group includes subsidiaries, while Okomu’s filing covers its reporting company. They offer exposure to plantation agriculture, but they are not identical businesses or production footprints.
Profit tells two different stories
Presco’s unaudited half-year accounts show virtually unchanged revenue of ₦198.75 billion. Pre-tax profit increased 9.3% to ₦122.22 billion, while profit after tax fell 7.3% to ₦82.27 billion. The tax expense rose to ₦39.95 billion from ₦23.13 billion.
Okomu’s June interim report records turnover of ₦125.29 billion, down 3.5%. Pre-tax profit declined 12.0% to ₦58.99 billion and after-tax profit fell 16.4% to ₦39.73 billion. Its net operating expenses increased to ₦20.79 billion from ₦18.53 billion, compounding the pressure from lower sales.
Presco’s own July 29 results commentary identifies a 31.9% reduction in finance costs as an important contributor to pre-tax growth. It also describes softer crude palm oil prices and a high-cost operating environment. Its proposed ₦10 interim dividend was announced in that context; it should not be mistaken for evidence that every operating measure improved.
The distinction matters when judging momentum. Lower financing costs can strengthen a business and free resources for other uses, but they are a different source of profit growth from selling more product at better operating margins. Similarly, a higher tax charge can reduce shareholders’ earnings even when profit before tax rises.
Cash conversion changes with the definition
Using reported net cash from operating activities divided by after-tax profit, Presco converted about 82.8% of earnings into operating cash, against 74.4% for Okomu. The underlying cash totals were ₦68.08 billion and ₦29.58 billion respectively.
That first comparison needs an adjustment before declaring a winner. Both statements place interest paid under financing activities. Deducting those payments produces an analytical after-interest measure of approximately ₦53.52 billion for Presco and ₦29.30 billion for Okomu. Relative to earnings, the ratios become 65.0% and 73.8%. These are calculations from the companies’ reported figures, not cash-flow measures published by management.
In other words, the apparent ranking reverses when cash interest is included. Neither ratio is a complete measure of distributable cash: investment in equipment and plantations, borrowing repayments and other financing needs still have to be considered. Cash taxes may also relate to different earnings periods.
Okomu’s company-income-tax payments were ₦27.59 billion, compared with ₦13.26 billion a year earlier. Presco reported ₦197.25 billion of loan repayments. Those two items illustrate why an earnings number, a dividend and a change in the bank balance can move quite differently within the same half-year.
Revenue is not a harvest count
The two interim filings do not provide a sufficiently comparable production-volume series to rank first-half harvest performance. It would be misleading to infer that flat revenue means flat production, or that falling revenue necessarily means fewer tonnes were produced.
Plantation revenue reflects volumes sold, realised prices, product mix and the timing of sales. Harvested output can enter inventory before being sold, while processing can turn the same agricultural input into products with different selling values. A sound volume comparison would need fresh-fruit-bunch production, extraction rates and tonnes sold on consistent boundaries.
Business mix also matters. Presco describes its operations as cultivation, production, refining and marketing of specialty fats and oils across a group that includes Nigerian and Ghanaian businesses. Okomu’s product information lists crude palm oil, palm kernels, kernel oil and kernel cake, while its financial report also records a rubber business. Those differences limit any attempt to treat revenue per company as a pure palm-oil productivity measure.
For investors comparing PRESCO and OKOMUOIL, the useful takeaway is narrower than a stock ranking. Presco showed stronger pre-tax resilience; both reported lower after-tax earnings. Cash generation remained positive, but financing payments and tax timing materially affect the comparison. The next production disclosures and full-year cash-flow reconciliation will be important checks on how much of the operating performance reaches shareholders.
Image: Palm oil at Gombe Old Market. Sector illustration; not a Presco or Okomu plantation or product. Photo by Yahuzaishat / Wikimedia Commons, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Wikimedia-provided 960px rendering; no local visual edits.
