Omega Ukama 
TSL says all its business units are exploring regional expansion as part of the listed agro-industrial firm’s focus on foreign currency generation.
“Foreign currency generation remains a key priority across the group and all business units are strategically exploring regional expansion,” Derek Odoteye, TSL’s newly-appointed chief executive told analysts last week.
“In 2020, we are looking at getting our chemicals business into Zambia. We are also looking at opening up the Beira corridor, which is a step we are taking into Mozambique through our logistics business.”
He said the company’s approach would, however, be “measured”.
“We are not going to just set up a business, create an overhead and hope that it works. We are going to make sure that the region has an appetite for our products and services first. And then as it demonstrates that it can support itself on its own two feet, we will support it more from a capital investment perspective,” he said.
“Regional expansion is a dangerous endeavour, there are a lot of examples of businesses that believed the region was just waiting for them to arrive, which is not the case. So, while we believe that all our businesses have opportunities to expand into the region, we are going to take it step by step,” he added.
Meanwhile, TSL said its investment in Cut Rag Processors was successfully disposed of during the year ended October 2019.
“The proceeds are earmarked to fund expansion projects in the future,” the company said in a note accompanying its results.
The company indicated that its tobacco services business “performed well” during the period under review.
“Tobacco Sales Floor invested in upgrading its handling facilities, re-engineering the business processes to eliminate queues and secured on additional volumes from merchants. The improved merchants’ volume coupled with the higher national tobacco crop size resulted in a good overall performance.
“Propak Hessian signed on new customers to increase market share by four percent and benefited from the larger national tobacco crop. Support was received from our tobacco merchant partners to import inventories,” the company said.
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