Insecurity lowers Learn Africa’s turnover by 2.9% in 2014

Learn Africa plc has announced a turnover of N2.21 billion for the year ended December 2014, as against N2.27 billion that was achieved in 2013, which reflects a marginal fall of 2.9 percent (N66.7m).

However, the company was able to grow open-market sales to schools and booksellers by 27 percent during the period under review. This is in line with one of its corporate objectives, which is to reduce dependence on patronage by ministries, departments and agencies.

The company said the marginal decrease in sales figure was due to the security challenges in the Northern parts of our country.

“The insurgency prevented us from securing bulk orders from states in the region, which are now preoccupied with spending huge sums on the maintenance of law and order. It has also hindered us from pushing our products widely as our sales and marketing team was confined to the safe areas of the region only,” Segun Oladipo, managing director/CEO, said in a statment.

Besides, the outbreak of Ebola epidemic adversely affected the company’s operations, especially because of the closure of schools for several weeks, which coincided with the sales season, when it usually get orders from bookshops and schools. “The recurring issue of book piracy also made it difficult for us to fully harness the potentials in our market, as the pirates have become more daring in the distribution of illegal copies of our widely recommended titles across the country,” he said.

The company also had to contend with the high inflation rate, strong and persistent pressure on the disposable income of an average Nigerian family, remarkable increases in the prices of imported raw materials and the poor reading culture in this country.

Despite all the challenges that it encountered in 2014, Learn Africa was able to declare a profit after tax of N58.6 million and has proposed a dividend of 12k on ordinary share of 50k for approval of the shareholders at the next annual general meeting.

As part of the measures to achieve a quantum leap in sales figures during the current financial year, the firm has expanded its product lines to include assorted dictionaries, supplementary readers, wall charts and general school supplies.

“Moreover, we are making significant progress in our attempts to ensure that all our titles are fully revised in line with the curricula that were recently introduced by the Nigerian Educational Research and Development Council (NERDC). We feel confident that the impending release of the publications will enable us to displace the competition, increase our market share significantly and sustain our reputation as pacesetters in the Nigerian learning resources business,” according to the statement.

In furtherance of its determination to boost its finances, the company has intensified the collection of all outstanding payments and strengthened its risk management system.

“We are considering the introduction of attractive incentives to encourage customers to settle their indebtedness on a timely basis. We are confident that this will bolster liquidity and increase cash flows. We are also examining other cost containment measures in addition to those that were earlier introduced, so as to reduce our overheads and run the operations of the company more efficiently.

“We are optimistic that the end year result for 2015 will reflect a very significant improvement on last year’s performance. Our position is based on the premium quality of our learning resources, our extensive and aggressive promotions, the wide sales and distribution network, competitive prices and greater operational efficiencies,” the company said.

HOPE MOSES-ASHIKE