Caverton plans African growth after NSE listing

Caverton Offshore Support Group, a Nigerian company that provides ma¬rine and aviation services to the oil and gas industry, plans to expand in four new countries after listing on the Nigerian Stock Exchange on Tuesday, reports Bloomberg.
“We’re looking at taking our aviation and offshore logistics support services to Congo, Mozambique, Angola and Ghana” over the next five years, chief executive officer, Olabode Makanjuola, said in an in¬terview in Lagos. “We’re invited by the international oil companies and investors in these countries.”
Caverton listed 3.35 bil¬lion shares at N9.50 each on the Nigerian bourse, it said in an e-mailed statement. That gave the company, which provides oil field services for multinationals including Royal Dutch Shell Plc (RDSA), ExxonMobil Corp. and Total SA, a market capitalisation of about N32 billion ($196 million).
The share listing is a boost to the stock market in Africa’s biggest economy, Nigeria Stock Exchange chief executive officer, Os¬car Onyema, said at the listing ceremony. The NSE is targeting a market capitali¬sation of $1 trillion from the current $75 billion estimat¬ed by Bloomberg. Caverton is the second company to list in Nigeria this year, the first being Seplat Petroleum Development Co.
Caverton shares fell 9.7 percent to N8.58 as of the close in Lagos, its second day of trading.
The company, which currently operates in Nige¬ria and Cameroon, plans to buy seven new helicopters and one fixed-wing air¬craft by the third quarter, to boost its aviation support services, Makanjuola said. The company will raise further capital “as the need arises” to fund expansion, he said, without giving fur¬ther details.
Caverton is tendering for four aviation-support service contracts that will require as many as 26 heli¬copters and for three ma¬rine-support service deals that will need up to seven vessels, Makanjuola said.
The company’s net in¬come rose to N1.88 billion in the year through December from N1.36 billion in 2012, it said in its filing Tuesday to the Lagos bourse. Revenue rose to N18.6 billion from N16.1 billion.