Guinness Nigeria will exit the Nigerian market in 2025, the company has announced.

This comes after the global brewery brand recorded a staggering N61.9 billion loss after tax between July 2023 and March 2024, just a few months after Tinubu floated the naira to unify the currency’s value on the official and parallel foreign exchange markets.

The company says it will sell off its controlling shares to the Singaporean conglomerate Tolaram Group on Tuesday, June 11.

Guinness has operated in Nigeria since 1950, however, the move by the President to unify the naira backfired and led to a huge N61.7 billion loss after tax in Q3 which was a 1,000 percent decrease from the N5.9 billion profit generated in the same period last year.

The downward spiral of the naira may also have informed the move by Diageo, Guinness’ parent company, to sell its 58.02 percent majority stake to the Singaporean group.

“Under the terms of an agreement signed today, 11 June 2024, Tolaram will acquire Diageo’s 58.02% shareholding in Guinness Nigeria royalty agreements for the continued production of the Guinness brand and its locally manufactured Diageo ready-to-drink and mainstream spirits brands,” the company said in a statement Tuesday.

Guinness Nigeria Plc, a public limited liability company quoted on the Nigerian Stock Exchange, was incorporated on April 29, 1950, as a trading company importing Guinness Stout from Dublin.

Tolaram's controlling stake acquisition is expected to be concluded by 2025.

In the statement, Guinness said the firm would leave Nigeria next year and hand over to a third-party venture.

“The transaction is expected to be completed during fiscal 2025, subject to obtaining the requisite regulatory approvals in Nigeria,” said the statement signed by Abidemi Ademola, Guinness’s legal director.

Diageo’s exit adds to a long list of other multinational companies, like GlaxoSmithKline and Microsoft, that have left Nigeria in the last one to two years, citing the harsh economic climate as making business unprofitable.

Some of Diageo’s popular brands in Nigeria include Smirnoff Ice, Smirnoff Vodka, Orijin Bitters, Malta Guinness, Gordons Orange Sunset, and Dubic Malt.