Chairman of Transcorp PLC, Mr. Tony Elumelu, has revealed that the company’s market value has surged to $3 billion (N4.5 trillion), up from less than N20 billion in 2011 when the group took over ownership.
Elumelu made this known on Wednesday at the company’s Annual General Meeting (AGM) held in Abuja.
The business mogul hailed the remarkable growth as a collective achievement of stakeholders, noting that the valuation does not yet reflect the potential of key subsidiaries such as TransAfam and the Abuja Electricity Distribution Company (AEDC), which are expected to further increase shareholder value once fully integrated and listed.
“Your company is growing. When TransAfam is listed, you can imagine what will be added to your current market value,” he said.
He also disclosed that Transcorp Power, one of the group’s flagship energy subsidiaries, now has a market value of over N2.7 trillion and has fully repaid the N250 million loan secured in 2014 for its acquisition.
On the group’s contributions to national development, Elumelu said Transcorp Power and TransAfam have a combined installed electricity generation capacity of 2,000 megawatts, with an available capacity of nearly 1,000 megawatts.
Elumelu described the achievement an impactful contribution in a country where less than 5,000 megawatts is generated on average.
“When we say that Transcorp is about transforming lives, improving lives and transforming Nigeria and Africa, it is based on the role we play in catalyzing development. Power is critical for the development of every economy,” he added.
However, the Transcorp boss decried the longstanding challenges in the Nigerian power sector, including liquidity constraints, poor infrastructure, and gas supply issues.
He lamented that the federal government currently owes the company over N600 billion for power generated and supplied to the national grid.
“I want to use this opportunity to reiterate that access to electricity, remains the single most critical factor in fixing the Nigerian economy, especially as we seek to have the non-oil sector make greater contributions to our economy. We must, therefore, fix power to fix and transform Nigeria.
“The dominant challenges of the power sector remain unresolved 20 years after some of them present heavy in this sector. As of date, our federal government owes your company over 600 billion naira. That is 400 million US dollars.
“Much as we, patriotic Nigerian investors, are committed to supporting the efforts of the federal government in fixing the economy, we have a rather excruciating burden of subsidizing the sector.
“It requires urgent attention. But I’m aware of some of the well-intended initiatives of the federal government in the power sector. The efforts commenced last year by the new administration, targeted at paying the debt owed to us, the Chairman stated”
Elumelu further acknowledged recent federal initiatives such as the Presidential Metering Initiative and reforms in transmission operations, but called for swift and decisive implementation to prevent the collapse of the sector.
He also announced the completion of a new 5,000-capacity event center at Transcorp Hilton Abuja, designed to position Nigeria as a hub for world-class international events.
“We believe that Nigeria should be able to attract global, international, world-class events. And you cannot achieve this without having an event center that can accommodate this number of people.
“Rwanda, Dubai, Kenya, have become event centers. So we want to put your country on that mark. And you have succeeded,” he said.
