By Chinwendu Obienyi
C&I Leasing Plc has reiterated its desire to embark on a business expansion drive to increase market share and ensure enhanced returns to shareholders.
The C&I Leasing Group Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer, Mr Lenin Ugoji, stated this at the company’s 31st Annual General Meeting for the year ended Dec. 31, 2021 at the weekend in Lagos.
Ugoji said that the business expansion would come in the form of fleet management business due to the inherent opportunities in the space especially in marine business.
He said that the company would likely acquire vessels for dry product movement soon.
“We are looking primarily at operational efficiency because even before you grow a business, you must be operationally fit. Part of what the new management wants to do is to bring about a lot more efficiency to the current operations, while we look at business expansion in a near future.
“Business expansion will come in the form of fleet management business because we feel that there are many opportunities in that space and in the marine business too but more in the non-oil sector so that we can diversify the risk of oil and gas. Therefore we may look at acquiring vessels in this area for dry product movement,” he said.
Ugoji remarked that the company would continue to support the nation’s infrastructure development.
According to him, “Nigeria is moving more and more towards infrastructure development and for a company like C & I Leasing, we believe that we can play a role in that sphere by facilitating such operations.
C&I Leasing, is a 32 year old company with so much experience in managing assets. That experience can be brought to bear in supporting Nigeria in that direction.Tax moderation can help, and for a company like ours, we want to expand further to logistics, so that means, we require the right kind of infrastructure that can help us.
“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 for them,” he said.