Jun 24, 2010 By Peter Egwuatu

 

May and Baker Nigeria Plc has declared its willingness to access the N40 billion international funds, even as it intensify effort to complete the construction of its ultra modern pharmaceutical plant by September 2010.

 

 

The company during a facility tour and pre Annual General Meeting (AGM) press briefing held on Tuesday in Lagos declared that the factory is the first of its kind in Africa and a world class plant designed to braze the trail in Nigeria as the country’s first World Health Organisation( WHO) pre-qualification for pharmaceutical plant.While briefing newsmen on the essence of the new plant , Managing Director /CEO, Dr. Joseph Odumodu, said, “ We want to expand and meet international standard to be able attract foreign market so that we can increase on our turnover and be in a position to reward our shareholders.

 

 

We are into this project not just for the sake of investment as a company but also to make a national statement that a Nigerian company has the capacity and know-how to achieve world class production standards in drug manufacturing. With this development, Nigeria will be recording another first in West and Central Africa, because the plant would be the first of such in the region.”Commenting on the company’ performance in the industry, he disclosed that the company can boost of its brand that are manufactured within the country.

 

 

According to him, “ Already we have projected a turnover of N5.8billion for 2010 and N8.4 billion for 2011. Also a dividend of 40 kobo and 50 kobo for 2010 and 2011 respectively. This is because of the investment we are making. By the time we stabilize we would be making higher turnover and paying higher dividend. We would be declaring two for five bonus shares for the financial year ended December 31, 2009, though we are not going to declare dividend due to the ongoing gigantic project. Odumodo, also highlighted that the plants which was initially budgeted to gulp N2 billion will now take over N3 billion on completion.

 

 

According to him, “ We are committed to complete the plants by September as we hope to get further funds from our bankers. Already Bank of Industry and Zenith Bank Plc have given us some money.We did also use N400 million from the proceeds of our last Rights Issue and we needed more funds. We are thinking of various options of accessing funds.By the time we get the plant completed we should be in a position to at least access 10 per cent of the N40 billion international fund.”

 

 

May and Baker boss emphasized that the plant when fully certified by the WHO will open gateway to international businesses as well as help conserve the country’s foreign exchange in the area of drugs.All the shareholders who were at the facility tour praised the Board, and management for the vision of having a world class plant.According to the President of Independent Shareholders Association of Nigeria (ISAN) who spoke the minds of shareholders, Sir Sunny Nwosu, “ We are very grateful to the Board, management and staff for their pro activeness to make this company a world class entity.

 

 (Source:Vanguard)