MURPHY: THERE IS INCREASING OPTIMISM ABOUT THE NIGERIA ECONOMY
might lose my job tomorrow.”
What is the distribution network for your products, considering the poor road infrastructure?
First of all we manufacture in Lagos, Benin city and Kaduna, we have three manufacturing plants and it is from those manufacturing plants we primarily service our distributors. We have two small depots, one in Aba and a second one in Kano. And we are actually formulating plans at the moment to see how we can get much closer, by way of geography proximity to our distributors. This is because we are dependent upon them coming to us and we provide them free transport, free subsidies etcetera. But if it is a partnership we need to get closer to them, that is something that we are looking at and actually discussing with our distributors how we can better balance it, how we can make life easier for them, is something that is under discussion at the moment. I would say that it is no secret that we are looking at opening up more depots.
Recently Mouka was recognised by the London Stock Exchange). What does this mean to you?
I think for us it is a tremendous honour to be recognised internationally for the performance of the company within Nigeria. It is a tremendous honour. We were contacted several months back by the London Stock Exchange, they were putting together this programme of companies to inspire Africa and they identified companies with some criteria. I think the first is exponential growth, so we were one of a select band of companies, not just in Nigeria but throughout Africa, which are recognised for their successes and we were asked to participate in this ‘Company to Inspire Africa initiative.
The companies selected are about 300 around Africa which were identified but out of that 300, nearly 60 of them were in Nigeria and Mouka was one of those selected in Nigeria. So we were asked to be at the forefront of the events and I attended the inaugural event in London a few weeks ago, which was a remarkable event because it was significantly over subscribed. They were literally queuing in the isles at this inaugural event in London. So from there the London Stock Exchange is on a road show in Africa, they were in Abidjan earlier in the week, they were in Lagos last night (April 27), they will be in Casablanca in a few weeks’ time, I think they will be in Nairobi as well. And it is really to get Africa back on the agenda of the investment forum.
There are a number of many notable successes within Africa but then most specifically in Nigeria, there are a high number of very notably successes within Nigeria despite gloomy economic performance of 2016. When one looks strategically at a five or 10 years period there are going to be bumps on the road or along the way and one cannot be distracted by one year or 18 months disruption, you got to look strategically and I think that is very much the view that London Stock Exchange group has taken in terms of companies to inspire Africa initiatives in Africa. We are going to have different countries at different stages of the economic cycle at any time but let’s take the long term view. So we felt humbled to receive that recognition of being a company to inspire Africa, one of the top performing
What are you expected to do under this initiative?
It is really to build the profile, open up awareness of the investment communities of the opportunities in Africa. And I see myself as an ambassador of opportunities within Nigeria. It is to really do whatever we can to increase the profile or to bring in investment into Nigeria. That is what it is. What the London Stock Exchange is looking for is that the companies to inspire Africa is to focus naturally on private companies because they want to encourage investment, they are also looking to support these companies to grow and you need capital to grow or maybe to list on the Nigerian Stock Exchange or even list on the London Stock Exchange, and I think yesterday there was a resigning of a partnership group between London Stock Exchange and the Nigerian Stock Exchange, which partnership has been in place for quite some time. So it is to increase awareness of investment opportunities, to get capital inflows going again but obviously, as companies grow they need further levels in capital.
As London Stock Exchange is doing this, is there any role government should play in inspiring companies like yours to inspire African investments?
Yes, naturally there is a role for government partnership in partnering with private companies and I think that as we move out of recession and we move forward, government will be able to help come up with a series of initiatives to enable growth. However, as a privately owned company, we are not going to wait for government whether it is in Nigeria or any other country in Africa or even in Europe. Let’s not wait for government, just go ahead and do your own thing you own way but work with government to help derive a series of initiatives that will