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Forte Oil to boost operations with fresh capital injection

By BusinessNews Staff on August 5, 2015

Additional capital will soon be injected into Forte Oil Plc that will significantly shore up shareholders funds and impact its negative working capital. The Group Managing Director of Forte Oil, Mr. Akin Akinfemiwa, who disclosed this yesterday at the company’s facts behind the figures at the Nigerian Stock Exchange(NSE) in Lagos, said the additional funds will be in form of equity and debt.

“There is an ongoing plans and commitment with potential investors to inject additional capital through debt or equity within the next few weeks.This, we believe, would significantly impact our negative working capital and also shore up our shareholders funds,” he said.

Akindemiw added that the company would also unveil business strategies aimed at boosting the company’s revenue and shareholders’ value in 2015 financial year.

According to him, the company would improve operating margins and diversify revenue base by focussing on high margin products such as lubricants and expanding the Geregu power plant assets with additional 21 mega watts.

He explained that the company had concluded arrangement to diversify into the upstream space through profitable acquisition of upstream assets.

He said that the company would diversify into the upstream space through profitable of upstream assets and harness partnerships with quick service restaurants, financial institutions and telecommunications firms.

Akindemiwa added that mthe company had entered into strategic partnership and alliances with technical partners to participate in the proposed Federal Government sale of marginal oil fields and divestment of International Oil Companies (IOC) investment in local oil blocks.

“The company would optimise opportunities from its real sector assets to grow complimentary businesses which would ultimately increase its bottom line.The company also intends to optimise its distribution channel through focusing on retail network optimisation and strategic acquisition of prime retail sites,” he said, adding: “The company would pursue a merger and acquisition exercise with partners with the same similarities with the company’s corporate governance strategy.”

Forte Oil recorded revenue of N61.17 billion for the half year ended June 30, 2015, as against N79.61 billion recorded in the preceding period of 2014, showing a decrease of 23 per cent.

Profit before tax stood at N3.26 billion compared with N4.19 billion achieved in 2014, while profit after tax dropped by 19 per cent to N2.53 billion against N3.13 billion posted in the comparative period of 2014.

[ThisDay]

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