By PETER EGWUATU

Mr. Adebola Akindele is the Group Managing Director,Courteville Business Solutions Plc, a quoted company on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE). He spoke to capital market correspondents on the benefits of the company’s new investment tagged ‘Egole’, and other issues that affect shareholders’ returns on investment after his return from London where some quoted companies on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) participated in the African and Caribbean 2012 London Business Expo.

Excerpts:

How much are you expecting to get from the new investment tagged “ Egole”

In the first year, we will hope to achieve up to 10 percent in terms of Courteville’s revenue projection for 2012, that’s what we hope to achieve. We started midway into the year, we started in July as I earlier affirmed and we would go out to achieve this; because we are going to put in a lot of resources to achieve this by creating awareness of what the facilities and opportunities are on the Egole platform.

What is this new investment all about?

Egole is our key efforts at making sure that we diversify our business base; from Government related activities and we hope that within five years, Egole will be in the forefront of being an entirely private sector established and driven business on the Courteville platform. We expect that in five years, we should be doing up to 50 percent or more of what Courteville will achieve in terms of revenue.

Our success will speak for Egole, our antecedent and the believe that people have in Courteville, in our structure, integrity and ability to deliver on everything that we have always promised to do, we will sell Egole; but more importantly, we always will continue to put a lot of effort into marketing and work with the people who would project the successes of the Egole.

How would the anticipated successes of new investment benefit shareholders

It’s straight forward, when there is no business; there is no revenue, if you are careful that translates to profit, if there is no profit, there is nothing for shareholders to benefit; as we have stated, in five years, if we are able to achieve our target, it could translate to improved dividend payout to shareholders of the company.

How is the company going to tackle the issue of competition?

Competition is good and as you have stated, there have been attempts by several companies to do this before now; but we did not just launch Egole in July of 2012, we have spent some years working on it, it has taken us since year 2008 and this is the fourth year of our effort in trying to establish a very strong base, we had the time and resources to execute this.

Again, we had the expertise, background and antecedent to be able to achieve this level of success. Everything that we have tried putting out in the Market has been successful to a certain extent and we pray to God that this will also succeed.

There are a number of other small efforts both in Nigeria and outside Nigeria; but like I earlier said, in everything we do, Egole will be the foremost business solutions Company in Nigeria and the world.

What are the benefits of the new investment to people in diaspora

Egole is a Nigerian word in local dialect for “What is the Price”, what Courteville has done is to establish an online shopping Mall for businesses and Consumers to interact; without necessarily needing a Physical Structure to be able to do their businesses; what can satisfy their daily requirement of buying and selling.

It is not restricted to just Nigeria, even though we have just started it in Nigeria, and it is catching up at a fast pace. Currently, it is the most robust Online Shopping Platform in Nigeria and West Africa at this time. What we have come to do at African and Caribbean Business Expo (ACCBE) essentially is to try and project this to the people in Diaspora.

There are lots of Nigerians and West Africans who are here and on the average; there is a need for them to transfer or to make transfers back and forth. Egole has been designed to do so many things as regards people’s shopping. Buying monthly provisions, seasonal stock and so on.

This can be done without necessarily transferring cash or sending cash physically across borders. People in London will be able to buy any product online, pay for same product Online and have them delivered to their destination in Nigeria.

Again, we are the Co-sponsors of the Africa Fashion Week London (AFWL); that was concluded on Saturday and there has been a lot of inquires from Marketers and Sellers of various products; who participated at the AFWL about how they could come online and shop.  Interestingly, people from places like Zambia, Zimbabwe and Uganda actually requested to know how they could come on Board. This is a better system of carrying out commerce and that is what Egole is all about.

How much did Courteville invest in the new investment?

First and foremost, what

we have done is to say that the ACCBE experience should give us the leverage that would probably allow us to move our business faster into countries outside Nigeria and Sierra-Leone; where we currently operate; but between Africa and the Caribbean in the first instance. We have targeted a very significant percentage of our Turnover as the marketing expense for this and that is part of what we have done. I don’t want to quote exact figures; but I can tell you it’s in Millions of US Dollars.