CWG Plc posts record ₦65.6bn revenue in 2025 but operating cash flow turns negative

CWG‘s audited accounts reveal an ₦8 billion swing in operating cash flow, a 623% surge in unbilled revenue, and a shrinking workforce, even as headline profits hit an all-time high

CWG Plc ended 2025 with the strongest financial results in its two-decade history. Revenue crossed ₦65.6 billion. Profit after tax hit ₦4.975 billion. The board proposed a dividend of 70 kobo per share, nearly double what shareholders received a year earlier.

By every headline measure, it was a landmark year.

But a closer read of the company’s audited consolidated financial statements, filed with the Nigerian Exchange Limited and signed off by external auditors PKF Professional Services on March 18, 2026, tells a more complicated story.

Beneath the record numbers sits a business where profit and cash are moving in opposite directions, where billions in recognised revenue remain uncollected, and where a shrinking workforce is being asked to deliver on a rapidly expanding contract book.

The numbers that made headlines

CWG’s revenue grew 41% year-on-year, from ₦46.4bn in 2024 to ₦65.6bn in 2025. Profit after tax grew faster (63%) from ₦3.044bn to ₦4.975bn. Gross profit more than doubled in two years, from ₦4.75bn in 2023 to ₦15.9bn in 2025.

The five-year financial summary in the accounts makes the trajectory even starker. In 2021, the company reported ₦11.7bn in revenue and a profit after tax of ₦574.6m. Four years later, revenue has grown nearly six times and profit has grown more than eight times.
The board, at its meeting on March 18, 2026, approved a dividend of ₦1.767bn, 70 kobo per ordinary share of 50 kobo each, subject to withholding tax. In 2024, the dividend was 39 kobo.

Software was the company’s fastest-growing segment, with group revenue rising from ₦16.4bn in 2024 to ₦21.3bn in 2025. IT Infrastructure followed, growing from ₦12.8bn to ₦23.6bn. Managed and Support Services contributed ₦18.8bn, up from ₦14.6bn.

Geographically, Nigeria remained the largest market at ₦42.9bn. But Uganda quietly became the second-largest market, contributing ₦12.9bn in 2025, up from ₦7.3bn in 2024, overtaking Ghana, which generated ₦8.9bn.

On paper, it is a compelling story of pan-African tech expansion.

Where the cash went

The profit and loss account is one window into a company’s health. The cash flow statement is another.

In CWG’s case, the two windows look out onto very different landscapes.

In 2024, CWG’s operating activities generated ₦5.805bn in cash. In 2025, the same activities consumed ₦2.168bn. That is a swing of more than ₦8bn in a single year (from strong cash generation to a cash outflow) even as reported profit grew by ₦1.9bn over the same period.

The group ended 2025 with ₦5.2bn in cash and cash equivalents, down from ₦6bn at the start of the year. A company that earned ₦5bn in profit finished the year with less cash than it began with.

The accounts attribute part of the operating cash outflow to a ₦7.1bn increase in trade and other receivables, a ₦3.8bn increase in inventories, and a ₦2.2bn reduction in contract liabilities. These are working capital movements, not unusual in a business that handles large, long-cycle technology contracts. But the scale is significant.

To bridge the gap, CWG leaned heavily on short-term borrowing. The company drew down ₦15.4bn in loans during 2025 and repaid ₦12.7bn, ending the year with ₦4.6bn in short-term interest-bearing debt, more than double the ₦2bn recorded at end of 2024.

The primary facility is a ₦10bn General Short-Term Banking Finance arrangement with Stanbic IBTC.

₦11.6bn in revenue that has not been billed

Perhaps the most striking line in CWG’s 2025 accounts is the movement in contract assets.

Contract assets represent revenue the company has recognised (earned, in accounting terms) but not yet billed to clients or collected.

At end of 2024, CWG’s group contract assets stood at ₦1.6bn. At end of 2025, they stood at ₦11.6bn.

That is a 623% increase in one year.
Under International Financial Reporting Standard 15, which governs revenue recognition, a company may record revenue when it has satisfied a performance obligation, even before an invoice is raised or payment received.

For a tech services company delivering complex, multi-stage contracts, some level of contract assets is expected and legitimate.
But ₦11.6bn is not a rounding error. It represents revenue that exists on the income statement but not yet in the bank.

Combined with trade receivables of ₦8.3bn (up from ₦5.4bn in 2024), net of expected credit loss provisions – CWG has more than ₦20bn in receivables and contract assets sitting on its balance sheet.

The company’s auditors flagged the impairment of trade and other receivables as a key audit matter in the independent auditor’s report, noting that significant judgement is required in assessing expected credit losses under IFRS 9.

The group’s expected credit loss on trade receivables rose from ₦61.3m in 2024 to ₦127.3m in 2025. On contract assets, the provision rose from ₦16.2m to ₦102.3m.

The question the accounts do not fully answer is when, and from whom, CWG expects to collect that ₦11.6bn.

CWG shrank its workforce

As CWG’s revenue grew 41%, its workforce shrank.

The average number of persons employed by the group during 2025 was 273, down from 321 in 2024, a reduction of 48 people, or 15%. At the company level, headcount fell from 283 to 231.

The accounts do not explain the reduction. The directors’ report contains no reference to a restructuring programme, voluntary redundancy scheme, or automation initiative.

What the accounts do show is that the remaining workforce cost significantly more.

Group staff costs rose from ₦2.852bn in 2024 to ₦4.073bn in 2025, a 43% increase even as headcount fell 15%.

Salary, wages and allowances at the group level grew from ₦2.4bn to ₦3.5bn. Total administrative expenses grew from ₦5.7bn to ₦8.4bn.

The company is paying more for fewer people while asking them to deliver on a contract book that has grown substantially.

Contract assets of ₦11.6bn represent work that has been recognised as revenue but, by definition, not yet fully delivered or billed.

The delivery risk embedded in that number sits, at least in part, with a group that is 15% smaller than it was twelve months ago.

The exchange rate wound

CWG operates across Nigeria, Ghana, Uganda and Cameroon, which means it earns and spends in multiple currencies. In 2024, that exposure produced a net exchange gain of ₦18.7m. In 2025, it produced a loss of ₦605.2m.

The foreign currency translation reserve (which captures the impact of converting subsidiaries’ results into naira for consolidation) collapsed from ₦1.9bn at the start of 2025 to ₦193m by year end.

That ₦1.7bn erosion sits in other comprehensive income rather than the profit and loss account, which means it does not reduce reported profit. But it reduces equity, and it reflects a real economic cost.

The company’s naira-denominated liabilities to dollar-denominated exposures showed a net short position of ₦1.519bn in 2025. A 5% move in the USD rate, in either direction, would affect profit before tax by approximately ₦394m, according to the company’s own sensitivity analysis.

What CWG has not said

CWG’s 2025 annual report runs to more than 80 pages. It contains detailed accounting policies, segment disclosures, and five years of financial history. What it does not contain is a narrative explanation from management of the operating cash outflow, the contract assets surge, the workforce reduction, or the borrowing acceleration.

The directors’ report (two pages long) describes the state of the company’s affairs as satisfactory and notes no material changes since the reporting date.

The bigger picture

None of what the accounts reveal is, by itself, evidence of a problem. Large tech services companies regularly carry significant contract assets. Working capital cycles can produce cash outflows even in profitable years.

Headcount reductions can reflect genuine efficiency gains. Short-term borrowing, if well-managed, is a standard tool for financing operations.

But CWG is a publicly listed company with more than 2.5 billion shares in issue and a shareholder base that includes multiple institutional investors. Its directors have proposed paying out ₦1.767bn in dividends from a year in which operating cash flow was negative.

The question shareholders may reasonably ask is not whether CWG had a good 2025. By the income statement, it clearly did. The question is whether the cash to sustain that performance, and pay for the dividend, is as close at hand as the profit figure suggests.
The 2025 accounts, on their own terms, do not answer that question. They raise it.