Imported User:
Transnational Corporation of Nigeria Plc (Transcorp) has undertaken a strategic review of its businesses and operating environment and identified three key areas on which to leverage its strengths in the next five to 10 years.
Obinna Ufude, President and Group Chief Executive Officer, Transcorp, said these sectors include agricbusiness, energy and hospitality sectors of the economy.
“In 2011, we have worked towards diversifying our business mix in order to enhance our portfolio returns. We will achieve this by creating a number of new businesses in our key focus sectors of Agriculture, Energy and Hospitality.”
Speaking during the Corporation’s Annual General Meeting in Abuja on Friday, Ufude stated that these sectors portend the best opportunities to leverage the corporation’s strength.
According to him, the group is set to build another juice concentrate plant with a larger capacity that the Teragro-Benfruit Juice Concentrate plant in Makurdi commissioned in March 2012. The new plant would be commissioned next year. “Leveraging our proven expertise in the juice concentrates market and the immense opportunities in both local and international markets, we intend to build another juice concentrate plant with larger capacity than the current plant,” he said.
“We see myriads of opportunities in the agriculture space in Nigeria and we will focus on processing priority crops particularly cassava, tomato and rice. Hence we plan to commission a large-scale rice mill as well as cassava processing plant within the next three years,” he said.
In the energy sector, Ufude said Transcorp signed and finalised agreements with EER and SACOIL in respect of Transcorp’s oil block OPL 281 adding that together, these events mark significant milestones in the Company’s on-going journey to build a world-class, well managed major conglomerate in Nigeria.
Transcorp Group reported net profit of N4.67 billion in its audited accounts and consolidated financial statements for the year ended December 31, 2011, and an operating profit of N1.4 billion indicating an increase of 88 per cent over 2010.
Revenue and gross profit increased by N451million or 19 per cent over 2010 while operating expense reduced by N258 million over 2010
Ufude said this report signifies a healthy improvement in its operating and financial performance following several strategic initiatives begun over the past year by the new management
At the Group level, revenues rose marginally by 1.07 per cent to N 14.07 billion from the previous year’s N13.9 billion, in spite of the harsh operating environment. Profit was N4.67 billion from N5.39 billion the previous year. However, adjusting these figures for the exceptional item of N2.89 billion in 2010, shows a growth of 40 per cent year-on-year.
