Modupe Gbadeyanka
By Modupe Gbadeyanka
Chief executive of Transnational Corporation of Nigeria Plc (Transcorp), Mr Valentine Ozigbo, has listed steps management of the company would take to make shareholders happier in the fourth and final quarter of this fiscal year.
On Tuesday, the firm released its financial results for the third quarter ended September 30, 2019, but the numbers were not encouraging.
Mr Ozigbo, while reacting to the results, attributed the weak performance to significant operational challenges like severe gas shortages, mandated reduction in generation from the National Control Centre and importantly, revenue exposures from delayed payment of receivables in our power business.
Business Post reports that the gross revenue generated by the firm depreciated to N58.3 billion from N79.9 billion, while the profit before tax (PBT) dropped to N7.4 billion from N17.7 billion. However, the total assets increased by about 5 percent to N313.1 billion from N297.1 billion as of FY 2018.
The hospital arm of the group, Transcorp Hotels Plc (THP), grew notably by 16 percent in its year-on-year revenue and had a gross profit increase of 19 percent in comparison with the same period of 2018. Revenue from its power business, Transcorp Power Limited (TPL), however, declined during the period due to gas and transmission issues.
But Mr Ozigbo allayed fears of shareholders, assuring that, “On our part, we have taken several actions aimed at proactively and sustainably addressing these issues.”
According to him, “These include the recent activation of our Gas Supply and Aggregation Agreement, guaranteeing gas supply to our power plant in Ughelli; leveraging the Eligible Customer regime initiated by the Federal Government, which gives value to our stranded capacities; consummating the acquisition of Afam Power Plc and Afam Fast Power Limited, thereby raising our total generation capacity from 972MW to 1938MW; expansion into alternative power generation and mini-grid opportunities, among other things.”
He expressed confidence that, “The actualisation of these steps, as well as improvement in market payment for electricity generation, will facilitate our projected revenue expansion in Q4 and the coming years.”
According to Mr Ozigbo, “This is in addition to even more significant contributions from our hospitality business, which is expected to benefit from the introduction of new service offerings.”
He said, “The recent discharge of the hotel from the Bureau of Public Enterprise (BPE) post-privatization monitoring, further speaks to its operational excellence and top-line corporate governance.”
However, he boasted that, “Our Q3 result reflects our long-term commitment to the sectors in which we play as we have had to focus on creating value for our shareholders.”
