Cote d’Ivoire: Financing Costs Overwhelm Bernabe Cote d’Ivoire Earnings in 2025

Bernabe Cote d’Ivoire (BRVM: BNBC), a hardware and building materials distributor founded in 1953, posted a net profit of just 22.3 million FCFA ($39,900) in 2025 on revenue of 45.3 billion FCFA ($81m) — a margin so thin it barely registers. The company is operationally sound but financially trapped.

The problem is its balance sheet. Bernabe carries 18.5 billion FCFA ($33.1m) in short-term bank borrowings — more than 40% of total assets — to finance the inventory it must hold before customers…