After recording its first profit since 2018, real estate firm, UPDC, has said that it will focus on projects to sustain it revenue streams.
This was disclosed at a media event organised by the group on Tuesday in Lagos.
The Managing Director of UPDC, Odunayo Ojo, said that the company had been operating in the reds for years due to the economic environment as well as changes within the group.
He said, “A lot of the indices from the company grew last year. So to a large extent, it shows UPDC going in the positive direction, after so many years of restructuring, so many years of repositioning business, we are beginning to see light at the end of the tunnel.”
In its 2022 financial statements, UPDC reported a 614 per cent growth in its revenue from N825.40m in 2021 to N5.89bn at the end of 2022. It also recorded a N200.53m profit, a 111 per cent appreciation from the N1.87bn loss in the corresponding period in 2021.
On its focus on having a healthy project pipeline, Ojo said it was key to sustaining the appreciation in the indices of the company.
He said, “We have started to do projects and we would be developing more projects. Last year, we only had one project that contributed to the (appreciation in indices). We had some assets too. But to sustain it, we need a consistent flow of projects.
“Most real estate businesses don’t have a flat cash flow projection. There are some years where you sow, there are some years where you reap. Sometimes it takes two years to buy the land, design it, get planning approval. So the gestation period for real estate development takes a long time but what we want to do is that we want to have a healthy pipeline of projects which we are currently working on.”
Ojo added, “It requires a lot of capital, it requires a lot of patience. It is not a slam dunk as they say. It is not one year do it and then forget about. Last year was a good year for us, we expect this year to possibly be good, but we do not expect the spike like we saw between 2021 and 2022.
