C&l Leasing hopeful of sustainable growth on key reforms

C&l Leasing Plc has unveiled a plan to explore opportunities in infrastructure by realigning its business model to enable it to manage assets in that space and sustain growth in the next financial year.

At the company’s 31st yearly general meeting held in Lagos at the weekend, the Group Managing Director, Ugoji Lenin Ugoji, said government’s intervention programmes and investment in priority areas, especially in infrastructure, have underscored the scope of demand for capital assets.

He restated the commitment of the new management to reposition the company and maximise shareholders’ value by facilitating business activities in infrastructure next year.

He said: “Nigeria is moving more and more towards infrastructure independence and for a company like ours, we believe that we can play a role in that independence by facilitating the operation of that infrastructure.

“This is a 32-year-old company with a lot of experience in managing assets, so, we think that the experience will be brought to bear in supporting Nigeria in that direction.”

Besides, he stressed the need for the government to deepen its support for the industry by improving both the regulatory and operating environment, especially in the areas of tax moderation.

According to him, a favourable tax policy will stimulate activities in both the demand and supply side of the leasing industry in Nigeria and spur economic growth.

Ugoji also disclosed that the company would expand its business activities shortly, while increasing operational efficiency in the existing ones. He said the company would focus more on fleet management, marine and other non-oil businesses to diversify the risk in oil and gas.

“Our business expansion will come in the form of fleet management because we feel that there are many opportunities in fleet management space and the marine business but more in the non-oil sector so that we can diversify the risk of oil and gas. We may look at acquiring vessels in the area for dry product movement.”

He pointed out that inflationary pressures, as well as exchange rate fluctuations, have been issues the company continues to grapple with, adding that measures are in place to hedge against such uncertainties.

“We thank our shareholders for their patience; we also ask them to give us that support for us to be able to transform some of these initiatives into cogent sustainable benefits,” he said.

Reviewing its performance, the company’s Chairman, Dr. Samuel Maduka Onyishi, said profit before tax increased by 9.5 per cent to N542 million from N490 million achieved in the corresponding period in 2020 while total assets rose by four per cent to N58.1 billion.