•Pays N150m dividend to owner-states
Odu’a Investment Company Limited, a conglomerate owned by the five South Western states, recorded a revenue of N4.29 billion in last year, against N4.51 billion recorded in 2013 – a five percent decline.
The company however recorded N759 million profit before tax in the year under review, showing a 53 per cent increase over N495 million achieved in 2013.
Similarly, its earnings per share (EPS) also rose by 98 per cent from N0.72 in 2013 to N1.43 last year.
Given the stride recorded by the conglomerate over the last one year, the board of directors have declared a dividend of N150 million, representing 26.1 kobo per share payable to its five shareholder states of Oyo, Ondo, Ogun, Osun, and Ekiti, after non – declaration for a period of six years.
The company’s chairman, Chief Isaac Akintade, while speaking at its 33rd yearly general meeting of the shareholders, expressed delight at the performance of the conglomerate, against its relatively low performance in 2012 and 2013 financial years, due to the prevailing economic situation in the country then, assuring of a brighter outlook in the coming years.
While giving a breakdown of the company’s financials at the meeting attended by all directors as well as the Secretary to the state government from each of the owner states, the Group Managing Director, Adewale Raji said “the payment of dividend is a commitment that we vowed to maintain, considering that we have not paid dividend in the past six years.”
He maintained that the result so far had indicated that the company was gradually improving in its operations, despite the five per cent decline in its revenue.
Raji said that he was optimistic of improved growth for the company in the future, going by its 2015-2019 strategic plans.
