Great Nigeria Insurance Set For Exponential Growth, Value Creation
Mrs. Cecilia Osipitan, MD/CEO, Great Nigeria Insurance Plc
One of the foremost insurance firms in Nigeria, Great Nigeria Insurance (GNI) Plc is ready for exponential growth and value creation.
In a bid to actualize this, the Board of the Company has approved the voluntary delisting of the Company from the main Board of the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) even has it has also received the support of its shareholders to this effect.
Reasons adduced for this is that for over five years now only 0.50 percent of the company’s stocks held by minority shareholders were traded coupled with a “measurable fall in trading volumes in the last one year.”
Addressing shareholders at the company’s Extraordinary General Meeting (EGM) held recently in Lagos before the firm’s 50th Annual General Meeting (AGM), Chairman of the Board, Balde Aluko said the board is proposing to delist the 3,827,495,380 units Ordinary Issued Shares of the company from the Daily official list and from trading on the main Board of the NSE.
Bade expressed optimism that the successful completion of the delisting process “will herald ultimate value creation for our company.”
In her speech at the AGM, Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer, Cecilia Osipitan who expressed delight on the uncommon success recorded by the company in 2017, said “Truly the company is set on the path of exponential profitable growth and value creation.”
On the company’s performance during the period under review, Osipitan said the company has surmounted all economic challenges to sustain growth with significant improvement.
She said the company’s Profit before Tax (PBT) grew exponentially by 202 percent from a loss of N442.7 million in 2016 to a profit of N449.7 million in 2017; while the Gross Premium Written, according to her, grew by 36.59 percent to N3.02 billion as at December 31, 2017 from N2.21 billion recorded a year eelier.
On investment income, the MD said the company has recorded a 30.89 percent growth from N306 million in 2016 to N401 million in 2017 adding that the company’s total assets appreciated by 1.2 percent during the period under review to N11.12 billion from N10 billion recorded value in 2016 just as the shareholders funds also witnessed a 7.7 percent increase from N5.43 billion in 2016 to N5.89 billion in 2017.
Osipitan said GNI achieved the feat as a result of strategic initiatives and decisive steps taken by management towards improving business effectiveness and ability to deliver exceptional service to their esteemed customers, stating that the company will consolidate on its performance “hitherto by leveraging on strategic initiatives to increase insurance awareness and sensitization, create customized-risk products tailored to every segment of consumer needs” that will “positively influence the perception of the insuring public as a need and necessity.”
She said the company is re-engineered in line with industry trend and are more committed to dominating the retail market through continuous and consistent awareness.
