Fresh capital injection to turnaround AG Leventis – CEO

In its efforts to revamp its business activities, AG Leventis has said it will inject fresh capital that would turn around the company’s performance.

Speaking at the ‘Facts Behind the figures’  on the Nigeria Stock Exchange (NSE), Executive Vice Chairman/ Chief Executive Officer of AG Leventis, Michael Economakis, said the company’s would sustain turned around top line trend towards growth.

“We are discussing with foreign investors, hopefully there will be capital inflow very soon.This capital inflow will assist us in having better cash flow, there will be reduction in our cost of fund and we will be able to expand our products portfolio”, he said.

While speaking on sectors of strategic priorities of the company, Economakis said fast moving consumer goods, automobile, agriculture and real estate are major area the company is targeting to develop in the next two years.

He said AG Leventis was discussing with foreign investors to inject new capital into fast moving consumer goods sector of its businesses.

The capital, he said, will aid the company in expanding  its product portfolio into some  products with a potential long term technical service partnership with Pick n Pay, one of the two retailers in South Africa.

On automobile, he said the company had commenced production of vehicles last year and would expand it plans to assemble for other distributors in the region.

He revealed that AG Leventis was looking at the large scale farming in Nigeria that would lead the company towards backward integration in agriculture.

Speaking on the half year financial results of the company, Head of Finance, AG Leventis, Olugbenga Kasomo, attributed cost of materials, foreign exchange crises as major problems that hindered the performance of the company.

AG Leventis Revenue rose by nine per cent, from N5.936 billion in half year 2015 to N6.442 billion at the end of half year 2016.

It’s cost of sales rose by 24 per cent from N4.266 billion to N5.274 billion in half year 2016 while total operational expenses increased by 12 per cent in half year 2016 from N1.269 billion to N1.425 billion.

AG Leventis profit before tax for the period declined by 298 per cent to close at negative N494 million from N249 profit of 2015 half year.