NAHCO declares N295.3m dividend for sh

The board of directors of the Nigerian Aviation Handling Company Plc (NAHCO) has declared a total dividend of N295.312 million, at 20 kobo for every ordinary share in issue and a bonus of one new share for every 10 shares held for its shareholders in the year ended 31st December 2014.

At the 34th yearly general meeting of the company held in Abuja recently, the Chairman, Mallam Suleiman Yahyah explained that this represented a monetized increase of 150 per cent returns on shareholder investments compared to 2013.

Giving the overview of the year under review, the chairman said that despite the general operating challenges in the Nigerian economy, the company has been able to maintain its activities, operations and performance and realigned its strategies to absorb the shocks.

Reeling out some of the challenges the company contended with, the chairman said issues around the crash in the global crude oil prices, devaluation of the Naira and rising interest rates combined to exert pressure on the Nigerian economy.

He also pointed out that the four months of Ebola scare and the several warnings to travellers to West Africa and flights cancellations significantly impacted aviation services in the second quarter in the year under review.

According to him, the company was able to record a marginal increase in turnover from N8.09 billion in 2013 to N8.133 billion in 2014 and a decline in profit after tax from N853 million to N568 million, due to the aforementioned challenges and its faceoff with the Nigeria customs and licensed clearing agents, which resulted into the closure of its warehouse, due to operational disagreement coupled with the high cost of doing business in the country.

With the capital market which witnessed selling pressure from the second half of the year, Yahyah said market capitalization fell from over N11 trillion to appropriately N9 trillion at the end of the year, reflecting investors uncertainty about the 2015 elections and concerns for weakness in the economy’s fundamentals.

He said these challenges were not able to daunt the spirit of the company as it was able to achieve 35 years of sustained and unbroken good performance, adding that the company has been able to move from a very small handler to the largest ground handler in sub-Sahara Africa.

He pointed out that the company remains the only aviation handling company to be listed on the floor of the Nigerian Stock Exchange, with widespread ownership interest held by over 75,000 shareholders.

His words: ‘’We have sustained our ISAGO and IATA certification for the fourth year and obtained Ra3 Cargo certification and are the only holders of the British Airways Insignia Silver status certification among others. NAHCO also won the prestigious Nigerian Stock Exchange Corporate Governance Certification , one of 10 certified among the several listed companies in 2014 ’’.