NAHCO targets 323.3% increase in 2019

The Group Managing Director, Nigerian Aviation Handling Company (NAHCO aviance) Plc, Mrs Olatokunbo Fagbemi, said the company’s profit would grow by 323.3 per cent in the 2019 financial year.

Fagbemi stated this during the company’s Facts Behind the Figures presentation at the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) in Lagos recently.

Fagbemi said the company embarked on a five-year strategic initiative targeted at shoring its profit to N2.13 billion in 2019 against N503 million in the 2018 financial year.

She noted that the strategic investments in ground support equipment and infrastructure as well as human capital development and improvement in operational efficiency at the airports would deliver significant value in the next five years.

Fagbemi added that the company would achieve a turnover of N13.27 billion in 2019 as against N9.88 billion in 2018.

According to her, over the next five years, the company expects its revenue to rise steadily from N9.8 billion in 2018 to N13.27 billion in 2019.

“From 2020 to 2023, the company’s revenue is projected at N16.916 billion, N21.567 billion, N27.495 billion and N35.054 billion, respectively,” she said.

The NAHCO boss assured the investing public that the company was confident of paying nothing less than 25k dividend per share.

She noted that the company expected the transformation agenda to significantly impact on its performance from the third quarter, given the seasonal nature of the aviation business.

“We can assure you that we will achieve our targets in 2019. We believe we can achieve our forecasts.

“We have thought deeply about the figures and put everything in place to ensure we achieve the forecasts.

“We stand by the forecasts that we have and we believe we will achieve them”.

She said the company had already invested about N2 billion in new equipment and planned to increase the investment to more than N3 billion by the end of the 2019 financial year.

She noted that new investment in equipment would help to reduce operations costs, which were largely due to infrastructure failure at the airports and aging equipment that lead to increased maintenance costs.

Fagbemi explained that with the new ground support equipment and ongoing improvement of airport facilities, operating cost would reduce substantially, enabling the company to pass its steady revenue growth to shareholders.

In addition, she stated that, “We are focused on improving and turning around the company. We will focus majorly on strategic initiatives that will deliver operational efficiency and impact the bottom-line”.

She said the company had been well positioned to take advantage of the positive growth potential of the aviation industry in Africa and Nigeria.

According to her, NAHCO has remained the preferred handler for the mail and cargo traffic in the country. Mail traffic increased by 19.96 per cent in 2018 compared with 2017, while international air cargo and domestic cargo rose by 3.5 per cent and 1.94 per cent respectively.

She said the company had continued to invest in various businesses to expand and diversify its revenue base and deliver improved returns to shareholders, and enough measures has been put in its plan to overcome challenges in the operating environment.

Fagbemi explained further that the management of the company was not unmindful of the challenges in the operating environment such as liberalisation of the Nigerian market, increased competition, pricing pressures and business model obsolescence.