By Peter Duru, Makurdi

The Managing Director of Benue Investments and Property Company, BIPC, Mr. Alex Adum says with the ongoing reforms in the organization the net worth of the company would hit N30billion in 2025 from the present N15billion.

He said his vision was to have BIPC became one of the leading investment houses in the country by 2025 but observed that since several constrains would not permit the attainment he was determined to have the company lead in the North Central.

The Managing Director who made this known yesterday in Makurdi said the company had already commenced the tracing of some of its lost assets in Jos, Lagos and even Kaduna which would eventually help grow the capital base of the company.

He said “as at today the net worth of BIPC in equities investment as quoted on the Nigerian Stock Exchange is about N4.5 billion.

“And for our property investment, our net worth by the last valuation that we did of our properties and assets, BIPC was worth over N10 billion. Put together, you are talking of about N15 billion.

“Of course, that is a far cry from the N40 billion that BIPC was worth in 1999 when democracy resumed. But you know that a whole lot of water had passed under the table at BIPC because assets were stripped on a very continuous basis.

“But this is the first time that BIPC is getting respite for a number of years. And we are hoping that we will be able to rebuild these assets.

“So by the time we complete some of our projects and get all of our lost assets back into the net, BIPC’s net worth will move to about N25 billion. That is about N20 billion in physical properties and assets, and about N5 billion in equities,” he added.

Speaking on BIPC’s intervention in the agricultural sector he said the company had commenced the direct sale of fertilizer products to farmers in the state at a highly subsidized rate.

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Mr. Adum said the company was giving out each bag of fertilizer at N5,500 as against the N7,500 it was being sold in the open market.

He explained that aside fertilizer, the company was also providing seedlings and other agro chemicals to farmers as part of its intervention to boost food production in the state.

Speaking further he said, “in our agric business division we have tried to do a lot in the two-promotional section of the business rather than be involved only in the produce merchandising.

“We are being visible for our farmers and merchants who want to buy produce from Benue. We have also decided to address the agricultural value chain by getting involved directly at primary agriculture and that is what we are doing this year.

“We have decided to facilitate the access of our farmers to fertilizers and agro-chemicals. BIPC has acquired fertilizers and selling to Benue farmers at the price of N5,500 against the N7000 and N8000 in open markets.

“We are making it easy for our farmers to access fertilizers. Though the subsidy regime has been completely removed but we are making sure that our farmers access the product at the cost price of the product by the new fertiliser policy of the federal government or as all fertilizer manufacturers are required to sell.

“What we have done is to buy those products in huge quantity, minimum of 30 tons and try to make it available to our farmers. We are also providing seedlings and several other agricultural chemicals to our farmers”, he said.

Vanguard