Nestle Nigeria Drops Most in 10 Weeks on Price Bets: Lagos Mover

Nestle Nigeria Plc (NESTLE), the West African nation’s largest food company by market value, fell the most in 10 weeks as investors bet a recent rally in the stock was overdone.

The stock lost the daily limit of 5 percent, the most since Jan. 3, to 462.37 naira by the 2:30 p.m. close in Lagos, snapping a five-day, 22 percent gain.

“A lot of investors are selling so the demand is not strong enough to hold the price at that bullish level,” David Adonri, Chief Executive Officer of Lambeth Trust and Investment Co., a Lagos-based brokerage, said by phone today.

Nestle Nigeria, a unit of Nestle SA, the world’s biggest food company, aims to double its business in Africa’s most populous country within three years, the company said in February 2011, after it opened a factory near Lagos, the commercial capital. Nigeria is Nestle’s second-biggest market on the continent after South Africa.

To contact the reporter on this story: Vincent Nwanma in Lagos at vnwanma@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Dulue Mbachu at dmbachu@bloomberg.net