The Albino Foundation Public Notice
By Ruby Leo
The Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority (“NSIA”), manager of Nigeria’s sovereign wealth fund has said that despite low earnings on investment in 2022 as against 2021, appreciable gains have been made which has greatly improved the lives of millions of Nigerians.
The Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer Mr. Uche Orji of the authority giving its audited results for the 2021 financial year noted that the strong financial performance underscores the resilience of the NSIA’s investment strategy and the quality of its earnings given the challenging macro environment.
According to him on finances made he said, “recorded 9th year of continuous earnings in spite of volatility and cyclical risks across markets”.
“Total Comprehensive Income of N147.0 billion in 2021 a decline of 8.2% relative to 2020 at N160.1 billion; inclusive of FX gains of (N45.8 billion in 2021 and N51.2 billion in 2020).
“Total operating income – Core income (exclusive of FX gains) of N100.8 billion in 2021, down 8.0% compared to 109.6 billion in 2020.
“Net Assets grew 19.0% to N919.73 billion in 2021 (2020: N772.75 billion).
However he added that the autlority delivered strong performance, saying, “while the results are in line with the Authority’s expectations, strong performance of our developed market investments were offset by challenges in our emerging market asset allocation, particularly in China equities, which saw significant underperformance by technology company stocks. ”
He explained that inflationary pressures will persist for much of this year, affecting the performance of all asset classes but assured that is committed to strengthening the Authority’s performance by strengthening their risk management teams.
He reavealed that the authority will expand direct investment footprint in innovation and technology in Nigeria, designate ESG as an investment focus area.
Speaking on the performance of the Nigeria Infrastructure Fund (NIF) Mr Uche Orji said that the NSIA reached major milestones across domestic infrastructure projects specifically in motorways, agriculture, healthcare, technology, and gas industrialization among others.
In agriculture, he said the Presidential Fertiliser Infrastructure is one of the Authority’s most successful intervention programmes.
“As of year-end 2021, 51 blending plans have been included in the programme starting from 11 in 2017. The operating entity of the programme NAIC-NPK (now PFI-NPK) has been divested to the Ministry of Finance Incorporated (MOFI) and is being managed by the Authority as a third-party asset. The restructured entity also turned a profit for the first time which is remarkable for what has been perenially a subsidized program”.
“NSIA expects to commission Panda Agric in mid-to-late 2022. Panda Agric is an investee company under the NSIA-UFF US$200m Agriculture Fund set up in 2016. Panda farm is engaged in the two-phase development of an animal feed processing business with backward integration through the farming of maize and soybean on about 3,500Ha of land in Nasarawa State (“Project Panda”).
“Approximately 96 % (720ha) of the targeted 750ha of center pivot irrigation coverage has been achieved.
In technology it successfully invested in a hyperscale cloud data company – Kasi Cloud Limited. Kasi Cloud is the next-generation interconnection and data center platform for hyperscale and enterprise cloud solutions.
In gas industrialization initiative, the Authority made significant progress in conceptualizing the development of the Ammonia and Di-Ammonium Phosphate production plants in partnership with OCP. We have secured a site for the plant and studies are on-going including the early stages of selecting an EPC company.
While on toll roads, the three road projects being implemented by the NSIA under the Presidential Infrastructure Development Fund (PIDF) namely the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, Second Niger Bridge, and Abuja-Kaduna-Kano Highway have reached advanced stages of construction.
In Health care, the authority’s pilot healthcare centres continue to deliver value as expected. Having operationalized all 3 Centres, over 60,000 patients have received care. Both NSIA-Kano Diagnostic Centre and NSIA-Umuahia Diagnostic Centre have provided services to over 50,000 patients while the Cancer Centre has attended to over 10,000 patients.
The Authority is in the process of developing an Active Pharmaceutical Ingredient Manufacturing Plant (API) Company in Nigeria. NSIA has secured approval and began the development plans for the construction and operationalization of 23 new modern medical diagnostic centers of excellence covering all 6 geopolitical zones in the country, 2 Oncology centres are to be cited in Enugu and Kaduna states, and 6 Cath Labs.
He opinoned that 2022 will be the most challenging investment environment in the last 15 years as a combined effect of Inflation, Russia-Ukraine and covid related supply chain challenges combine to create a tough environment for most asset classes.
The Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority is an investment institution of the Federation set up to manage funds in excess of budgeted hydrocarbon revenues.
