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Kudakwashe Mhundwa
Industrial group, TSL Holdings Limited has completed a five-year strategic plan geared towards creating synergies across all its business units that span across various sectors such as agriculture, logistics, property and car rental among others.
However, management said the business will be focused more on growing the agricultural related sub-sector.
“We are going to be moving agriculture and effectively what that means is that we are going to be bringing significant efficiencies to the agriculture supply chains.
“In terms of our service offering, we are going to work very closely with producers and processors of agro-commodities to make sure that they can get requisite inputs, commodity exchange service and end-end logistics solution at a price and manner that allows them to compete regionally and locally,” said chief finance officer Derek Odoteye.
“We have completed a strategy for the TSL Group and this is a strategy that is for the next five years until 2023. What we have always been looking for is creating synergy within our divisions, what is it that brings our agriculture, our real estate and our logistics businesses together, what is it that ties it seamlessly and we believe that our review purpose is to move agriculture, those two words encapsulate what TSL is going to be doing moving forward,” he said.
As part of the strategy, TSL says it has already started making investments to upgrade its tobacco auction floor facilities in a bid to grow the group`s market share in the industry. In the period under review, Tobacco Sales Floor retained its dominant position in auction of independent crop with a market share of over 60 percent according to management.
“The Tobacco-related service cluster has invested substantially on re-engineering and upgrading its business processes, accessibility and facilities. Emphasis remains on growing our market share of both independent and contracted crop,” chief executive officer Pat Devenish.
In the period under review, the agriculture cluster’s revenue increased to $35,1 million from $29,1 million while profit went up to $7,3 million from $4,4 million. Devenish said this was mainly on the back of a larger tobacco crop, reasonable rainfall and product availability.
In terms of financial performance, the group’s revenue for the year ended October 31, 2018 rose 19 percent to $52,1 million ahead of the prior year on the back of mixed performances across the board.
Operating profit at $9,1 million was 30 percent above prior year levels while profit before tax stood at $15,3 million compared to $6,3 million posted during the same period in 2017.
“The group produced a positive set of results for the year ended 31 October 2018. The agricultural cluster performed strongly. Tobacco-related business from the growth in the tobacco volume. The agro-inputs business had a good year, given the 2017/18 rainfall season and its early procurement of product to ensure better viability. These factors resulted in market volume growth.
“The real estate cluster`s performance was satisfactory with minimal voids. The new warehouses were constructed and brought into use of the Vorstemans Complex. The planned project upgrades which were intended to start in the second half of the year were differed to the 2019 financial year, given the volatility of pricing in the market,” said TSL.
The board declared a dividend of $0,70 cents per share for the period.
Bongani Ndlovu