L-R: AlhajiRabiu Gwarzo, Director; Mrs Sheila Ezeuko, Company Secretary; Mr Kenneth Odogwu, Chairman and Chief Uwad Okpa-Obaji, Director, all of Royal Exchange Assurance PLC during the 49th Annual General Meeting of the Company held in Lagos .
Nigeria’s premier insurance and financial services group, Royal Exchange Plc is looking into the future with great optimism, having positioned for increased market share that will offer its teaming shareholders good returns on investment, even in the medium term.
The Company believes that taking advantages of growth initiatives available in the industry while leveraging in technology will expand its revenue base and stronger bottom-line.
Kenny Ezeanwani Odogwu, chairman, Royal Exchange Plc who disclosed the firm’s future growth plans during the Company’s 49th Annual General Meeting held in Lagos said “Royal Exchange continues to stay abreast with many of the initiatives mentioned above in our quest to grow market share and attain market leadership position.”
Odogwu said the group is presently streamlining major components of her businesses, service delivery, processes and operations to deliver superior returns in the medium term to our shareholders through a digital transformation process we embarked upon recently.
“This we believe will reposition our great company as not only a major industry player but as a potential game changer. To sum it up, your board is confident about the future of our company irrespective of the current challenges besetting the company in the short term.”
On the Company’s agricultural insurance initiatives, he said “we are looking at ensuring our partnerships with government agencies, such as NIRSAL, as well as deepening our working relationships with relevant state governments and groups across the country to ensure we take full advantage of the opportunities that arise in the agriculture space.”
“Agriculture and retail insurance, we believe is the future of insurance and at Royal Exchange, we will continue to develop products and services to ensure that we remain relevant in this space.”
Alhaji Auwalu Muktari, Group Managing Director/CEO of the Company said the board and management has very high expectation for 2018.
“We remain resolute to bring in our best to the table even though various analysts’ expectations for economic growth remain modest. The focus would be on achieving long-term sustainable growth for our company through the deepening of our revenue base, improving service delivery support systems and at same time keeping a lid on our group-wide costs.”
According to Muktari, “Royal Exchange Plc envisions a situation where the retail insurance market should be able to contribute between 50-60 percent of our revenues in the future, as the retail market is the future of insurance in Nigeria, considering the population of the country.
He further said, “As a group holding company with five subsidiaries across the insurance and financial services landscape, it has become of vital importance that we seek to improve our efficiency across the group by leveraging on cost discipline, astute capital allocation and investments and deployment of operational know-how to make Royal Exchange Plc a leaner, faster, smarter and customer-centric organization”,
Royal Exchange Plc in the 2017 financial year generated a Gross Written Premium of N12.8 billion as against the figure in 2016, which stood at N12.5billion.
Net Premium Income for the period amounted to N7.1billion, while underwriting profit amounted to N7.6billion in the financial year under review.
A further analysis of the operating results showed that the Total Assets of the group witnessed a marginal growth of 5 percent, from N31.7billion in 2016 to N33.3billion as at December 31, 2017.
Net claims paid for the period under review amounted to N3.4billion, underscoring the company’s commitment to its clientele.
