The Chairman of the company, Mr. Larry Ettah noted that a lot of challenges remained to be tackled in the process of integrating the company into the larger UAC business family, “plans and investments in rebuilding, renovating and making improvements in infrastructure and other critical areas have already commenced.”

He said, “This is necessary to stabilise and improve the company’s operation to guarantee a sustainable future that will ensure better returns to all stakeholders.”

It will be recalled that at the 2011 AGM of the company, shareholders approved the issue of 800 million ordinary shares of 50 kobo each offered to UACN by way of special placement and the investment by UACN of 51 per cent of the issued share capital of the company.

Ettah told the shareholders that the process for the placement had been completed and the requisite regulatory approval obtained.

On the efforts to grow the company, the chairman said, “We have just concluded plans for the installation of a brand new 12 metric tonnes per hour feed mill at our Ikeja factory later in the year.

“Other areas of quick wins and optimisation of synergies are being explored, especially in inventory acquisition, costs of efficiencies, engineering and product quality stability, which are critical to the company’s operations that will lead to improvement of its competitiveness.”

On the national scale, Ettah said 2012 was another challenging year for the industry, due largely to the spillover effects of the vegetable protein crises, which began in 2011 and further compounded by sharp increase in the prices of other poultry inputs.

He said, “The high cost and indeed scarcity of vegetable protein materials, especially soybean meal and groundnut cake largely shaped the industry during the year. Many toll millers shut down their businesses, while the very few that remained scaled down operations, as it became increasingly difficult to mobilise the resources required to organise and optimise inventory acquisition.”

Livestock Feeds achieves 50% rise in turnover