NICON Insurance Limited’s quest to remodel itself along the lines of it’s peers and racy new entrants into Nigeria’s insurance sector is taking shape with a $10 million restructuring plan on the table, but the firm’s weary watchers are not ready to applaud yet.
When it was first privatized in December 2005 with an asset base of about N52 billion, it was viewed by analysts and the market as one of the strongest insurance firms in the country.
But is has struggled through a series of strategic plans since 2013 that has failed to win over investing interests. Bayode Samuel, NICON managing director/CEO, revealed the latest restructuring version, which will see $2 million ploughed into IT facilities upgrades.
The firm in August 2015 announced it was selling off N20 billion worth of assets to meet financial obligations, part of which will go into settling outstanding claims of about N466 million. N10 billion of the asset was to have been disposed by December 2015. The firm went silent on its activities shortly after that, dampening enthusiasm.
“What we hope to see from now is some clear cut activity in the market and activities that brings it closer to investors,” said an analysts that has followed the firm since it was first privatized.
NICON capped their latest announcement with a hint of re-branding. We are thinking of re-branding the corporation by the roadmap and the board has earmarked the sum of $10 million for the restructuring, re-branding and rejigging of the company. The money is already sitting down somewhere,” Samuel told newsmen in Abuja.
Yet the reaction to the news is underwhelming when GandBJournal sought the investment community views.
“They still have issues rooted in corporate governance. That has to be taken care of before we will begin to take them serious again. But they have great potentials. That is a firm that did N50billion worth of business in the past. They can re-enact that if they solve that problem,” our source said.
But, Samuel says NICON is already back to profitability. “We make bold claim that this firm exited all claims in 2015 as directed by NAICOM.”
He says Oracle, the software giant, are already on ground working on their IT upgrade. “When finish we shall be on top of our games again before the second half of the year. You know the position of IT in management system in the world today, so we are spending about $2 million on that,” he said.
The CEO also spoke on the company’s Students Welfare Insurance Scheme (SWIS) developed last year which, he says has helped many school children to continue with their education.
Analysts say if the latest iteration of strategy spurs NICON’s resurgence, the market will notice and will quickly respond positively too.
