Florence Seriki, Group Managing Director and Chief Executive of Omatek Ventures Plc, has called on players in the Nigerian capital markets to support the goods, products and services being offered by the country’s small and medium scale enterprises (SMEs) listed on the stock exchange.
Speaking while delivering a speech on the operations of computer manufacturer Omatek, she said support of SMEs will encourage more of them to list on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE).
In the view of the Omatek boss, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), NSE and other capital market stakeholders ought to be patronising the listed SMEs.
Seriki said: “If regulators want SMEs to come to the stock market, they should also review their local content policies to favour those companies. If we do not have market created around us and right policies created around us, we cannot survive as companies.
“Not everybody will be willing to take a company that he started from the scratch to the stock market without some incentives.”
Concerning her company’s performance, she said the shareholders will reap the rewards before the end of the year as a result of investments which are expected to begin to yield dividends in 2013.
One is the construction of the company’s new factory in Ikeja, at the heart of Lagos state. Following the company’s successful relocation to the new factory, all of its manufacturing is now being conducted there, enhancing the availability of its products and improved customer service delivery.
In 2013, she said Omatek’s focus would be to consolidate on previous business initiatives and create new ones while prioritising reduction in its operation costs.
“We are the first and only completely knocked down factory in Africa that manufactures computers on a completely knocked down process. We produce desktops, laptops, and speakers from completely knocked down. We have powered all the factories with solar, even the converters and gadgets and with this, we try to reduce consumption cost by 85 percent which would help bring down cost,” she said.
