TSL to beef up units

THE Zimbabwe Stock Exchangelisted TSL Limited has lined up several investments as it seeks to expand operations.

According to the group’s chairman Antony Mandiwanza, TSL will pursue key strategic initiatives in line with its “moving agriculture” strategy.

“Several investments are lined up to scale up manufacturing, expand the capacity of the different business units and improve efficiencies to deliver a superior offering to the marketplace across the agriculture and mining value chains,” he said in the company’s 2023 annual report.

“The group’s digitalisation drive continues to bear much fruit with more digital investments earmarked for the upcoming year.”

The operating environment is expected to remain challenging and will be proactively managed to ensure continued shareholder value creation and preservation.

Focus will be on enhancing the group’s earnings, returns on invested capital, long-term value proposition and strengthening the financial positioning, Mandiwanza said.

The 2023/24 agricultural season is projected to have lower than normal rainfall, which will have an impact on the performance of some of the group’s business units.

The report showed that Propak hessian volumes were 32% ahead of prior year owing to stock availability and a larger tobacco national crop size.

Tobacco paper volumes were 27% ahead of prior year, as the market continued to respond positively to the locally coated paper.

Agricura’s volume performance for the year was mixed. Some product lines, particularly the locally produced animal health remedies and new grain protectants, performed better than in the previous year on the back of product availability while other product lines’ volumes lagged due to depressed demand.

Margin pressure negatively impacted the performance of the business unit.

The group concluded the buyout of a minority shareholder in Agricor.

The acquisition is expected to create increased flexibility for the business to expand and deepen its product offering to the market.

The farming operations, the report said, produced a superior quality of tobacco and achieved improved yields and price per kilogramme on tobacco compared to the previous year.

Favourable yields were achieved on soya beans and commercial maize although wheat production declined due to electricity availability challenges.

The new banana plantation came into production in the year resulting in increased volumes, the company said.

Tobacco Sales Floor cumulatively handled 51,9 million kilogrammes of tobacco — a 125% increase on prior year’s 23,1 million kgs.

The strategy to serve the much larger contracted tobacco market is yielding fruit, with 75% of the total volumes handled coming from this segment, TSL said.

The end-to-end logistics services, which support the customer throughout the value chain, resulted in an increase in volumes across most of the logistics’ divisions.

Tobacco handling volumes were 96% ahead of the prior year due to an increase in the customer base.

General cargo handling volumes were depressed, 19% below prior year due to reduced fertiliser volumes.

Volumes in the fast-moving consumer goods division increased by 32% on the back of new business.

Premier Forklift volumes were 16% ahead of the prior year as the business continued to grow its volumes from both new and existing clients with the fleet on hire growing by 32%.

Forklift sales were at par with the prior year volumes.

Avis’ rental days were below prior year by 12% due to a decline in the vehicle fleet in the period.

The fleet was replenished towards the end of the year and more vehicles will be added in the upcoming financial year.

Occupancies, returns and the level of voids remained satisfactory due to improved demand for warehouse space, TSL said.