Afprint Nigeria Plc, a subsidiary of Kewalram Group and an entity which was delisted from the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) last year is expected to bounce back to business next year when its Board of Directors must have met to approve the next line of business to embark upon following the closure of its textile mills.

The Kewalran Group, also will be celebrating its 150 years of successful operation and will be rejoicing with the people of Lagos for being there for 97 years since it came to Nigeria.

Deputy Group Managing Director, Kewalram – Chanrai Group, Mr.Victor Eburajolo disclosed this to journalists in Lagos, saying “ Kewalram has come to stay in Nigeria permanently. Nigeria is our home so we would continue to invest in order to grow the economy. We started business 150 years ago in Singapore and in Nigeria in 1913″.

According to him, “ an arrangement has been concluded to celebrate Kewalram-Chanrai Group in Lagos to be held on 29th November, 2010. We are going to have a big day in Lagos. We decided  to host the celebration in Lagos because that is where our business started when we came to Nigeria. So far the State  has been good to us and the people and the government have to be part of the celebration”.

Continuing, Eburajolo disclosed that the Group has diversified to many sectors of the economy such as agriculture, manufacturing, transport etc.

According to him, “we have gone out of textiles not that we want to but for the economic situation. The textile mills in Nigeria cannot compete effectively with textiles mills in developed economies. Even we cannot compete with textile mills in India. So we don want to do business that there is no prospect. The operating environment do not provide the atmosphere for the textile mills to survive in the country at the moment”.

On how much has been spent on the diversification exercise so far, he said, “ We have spent about $150 million since we started diversifying. For the fact that we delisted Afprint from the NSE does not mean we would not list it again. Remember we promised our shareholders that we would be back when we decides on the next business to follow and when we start making good returns”

Continuing, he said, “ we have ventured into agriculture. We do business with government on fertilizer but we hope to do business with the private sector in future when the atmosphere is good. We have gone into water and food production. Our latest baby is ECO Water. We have equipment that purify water without boiling for both industrial and non industrial users.

At the moment, we are looking for about 20 hectres of land in Abuja to build estates. We are not leaving this country as we are part of it. We want to invest in the real estate because it is a profitable business. We constantly re-strategies and exploring new business opportunities that will boost the Group’s bottom line.

We have expanded to other part of Africa . We are in South Africa, West Africa and East Africa. In West Africa we are in Ivory Coast, Ghana. We are in Kenya, Chad and we have office in Dubai. We have numerous products that we are engage into. We trade Bridgestone Tyres, NGK plugs, Valvoline Lubricants, Panasonic products, and even Daewoo flash screen TV and Mitsubishi vehicle