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UACN'S YOUNGEST CEO EVER 'Contd
April 21, 2007
| In the next one week, Ettah will be looking into the eyes of million of his shareholders and would be explaining his 2006 financial statements to them at Calabar a city he sees as the vista of opportunities of a new Nigeria, a city that its future represent that exciting future which quite significantly reflects what the company sees in the strides being made by UACN. With an average 43% growth in his activities in the last financial year, Ettah feels that the year closed well but could be better when his master plan begins to gradually evolve across the length and breadth of the conglomerate. He really would want to use the past records of the company as a working tool and not a target in anyway. “I think that the past informs the future, but for me, the future is much more important. I think we would be managing this business growing forward, not so much to be managing the earnings by managing the business itself. I think in the future, we will be managing this business significantly out of profitable operations rather than the exceptional or extraordinary items you can see in our books, because after some time, you will run out of exceptional or extraordinary items.” |
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At present, the conglomerate thinks so much about food. It is rather becoming a food chain so much so that its brands can be seen in every home. It will not be a surprise if 75% of its business turnover rests on the foods and allied investments. The company is not hiding from that fact and the Chief Executive is not keeping back any fact in his foods development strategy which he fees is the future right now. “I think, from the strategic perspective, what we try to do when we said we are going to be food focused conglomerate is that we have looked at the opportunities that exist in our environment in terms of food. We see that as having significant potential and also aligning with the competence of the UACN. So, we see that we can have the right cost, the right skills and the right environment for us to ensure that we grow much more profitably in that area; and UACN is a diversified conglomerate but the issue is, can you? It is alright to have a diversified operation, but you must also be able to manage it for integrated values. So, for us, can you manage a large sale and large scope at the same time?
As we are, we really can move forward but would be able to move as far and as fast as we want to. So, that means that there must be some significant refocusing in terms of our strategy. And that is why we are saying that we are going to be much more food-focused. But within that context of that conglomerate, there will still be opportunities for relatedness, I see some relatedness with property because if I am going to run a chain of restaurants and I need a real estate base to run that restaurant chain,. So, there is a real estate arm of it and if I am going to succeed as a consumer goods food business, I need a distribution arm and that route to the market can certainly come from my distributional logistics business.” There is certainly food dominance in Ettah's cards. Good enough, he has an age to operate in that growing market where most investors want to strike a balance. His major advantage is that his company has the scale and the learning and this will go a long way to reduce his costs while their numerous product ranges will offer him the pricing power. |
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One area that tickles Ettah so much is his company's marriage with ACTIS, the company that had seen his sterling qualities since their investment sojourn in UACN. Hear him, “ACTIS investment in UACN is not just a pure investment. It is able also to add value to UACN in terms of the fact that it is helping out in strategy, it is helping out in risk assessment, it is helping in giving us access to privileged network which allows us to tap into opportunities; to look at issues that reflect the kind of either the product that we are selling or the market that we are engaged in.”
As a matter of fact, the future at UACN is not just about the end to kobo-kobo dividends. It is about a huge haul that comes out of the barrels of the energy of youthful thinking. This appointment is a prelude to the efforts to make fore-most business empires worth their many years in Nigeria . Very soon, Ettah's generation will be in the majority. And this will be the thinking of most investors.
Culled from Business World; 21st April 2007 Edition
Written by Nik Ogbulie |
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