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Odu’a Investment ready to compete, become world-class conglomerate — Chairman

With the recent reforms in the Odu’a Investment Company Limited (OICL), the conglomerate is poised to compete all over the world to become a world-class conglomerate.

Speaking at the 41st Annual General Meeting of the Company, the Chairman, Otunba Bimbo Ashiru said there are ongoing reforms in the pipeline of business transactions and potential investments in the energy, power, agriculture, real estate, among others, some of which will translate into viable businesses and partnerships.

He noted that during the year 2022, the company made significant progress in the area of business development, adding that the Board of Directors of the company maintained its focus on good corporate governance, working assiduously to maintain and improve the corporate governance structure in line with the highest international standards and practices.

“As part of fulfilling our responsibilities of steering the company towards achieving its potential, we have stayed committed to the execution of our Five-year Strategy, which we refer to as Sweat, Revive and Create (SRC) 2025. The central thrusts of the strategy include sustainably improving returns by Sweating existing assets, Reviving moribund businesses within our portfolio or optimising their assets, and Creating new businesses across our priority sectors (Agriculture, Healthcare, Real Estate, Hospitality, Financial Services, Energy, ICT and Transportation and Logistics).”

Otunba Ashiru also noted that in the year under review, the board of OIL worked tirelessly to improve the quality and depth of engagement with the Board and Management of subsidiaries across the group, with emphasis was on setting the foundations for improved shared service arrangements and deriving intra-group synergies.

He noted that the board of the company planned to leverage it’s shared service programs to drive group wide culture and standardised business practices, while expecting that these efforts would result in increased efficiency and effectiveness of the operations of the company.

“Our conversations with the subsidiaries have also extended to improving cross-selling of products and services within the Group,” he said.

To give returns for investment and based on the profitability of the company, the Board of Odu’a Investment Company limited has proposed for the approval of the Shareholders a gross dividend of N428 million, representing 2.2 percent increase over the N418 million paid for 2021 Financial Year.

Speaking on the dividend, the General Managing Directorand Chief Executive Officer of OICL, Adewale Raji noted that these will bring the total dividend paid to Shareholders over the last 9 years to the sum of N2.56 billion.

On the financial performance of the company in year 2022, Raji said Odu’a Investment Company recorded a revenue of N3.68 billion in 2022 which was an 8.5 percent decrease from the 2021 amount of N4.01 billion, adding that the Profit Before Tax was N4.08 billion compared to the 2021 figure of N9.37 billion.

“This was driven mainly by a reduction in revaluation gains on investment properties from N7.11 billion in 2021 to N2.98 billion in 2022. These gains do not occur on all our properties all at once and will typically vary from one year to another. If these Accounting gains are removed, the normalised Profit Before Tax for 2022 will be N1.1 billion compared to N2.26 billion for 2021,” he said.

Looking ahead, the GMD noted that the management of the company are resolute in their conviction that the business plans set-out to be executed in 2023 would drive the expected growth. “We expect many of the opportunities in our pipeline to translate into positive revenue growth and profitability in 2023. Some of the investments we will be making this year, especially in our real estate and hospitality portfolio will however only start delivering revenue in 2024. Regardless, we see significant revenue growth in our Agriculture, and Energy subsidiaries.”

Otunba Ashiru was also positive that the year 2023 would bring higher rewards for the works done, while expecting some of the critical changes in the monetary and fiscal policy environment would drive activities in real estate and construction, agriculture, and the power sector, amongst others.

“I believe that the year 2023 will be pivotal for the business. Several transformational initiatives in our operations will be completed or nearing completion, and it will therefore be a year of consolidating on the significant shift that the Board and Management have worked so diligently to achieve over the last three years. The multiplier effects that we expect on our revenue and asset base have begun to appear, and the trajectory of the business can only be upwards,” he said.

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