BDC revenue improves

Botswana’s main agency for commercial and industrial development - Botswana Development Corporation (BDC) - has for the financial year 2014/15 posted impressive results recording 29 percent growth in revenue.

The corporation headed by Bashi Gaetsaloe who took over from Mariah Nthebolan posted total revenue of P194.4 million from P150.4 million made in the previous financial year.

Presenting the results to the media this Tuesday, Acting Chief Finance Officer, Maranyane Makhondo, said in addition to the 29 percent posted at a company level, the group’s revenue also showed an increase of 19 percent from P286.7million in the previous year to P339.9million in 2015.

Makhondo went onto reveal that, in the year under review, the company profit before tax increased to P109.8million following a loss of P67million in the prior year. At the group level, profit before tax grew to P247.3 million from P35.7million in the prior year.

During the same period expenses reduced by 28 percent at company level and by 41 percent at group level showing a commitment to running a leaner and more efficient organisation.

The corporation’s results come on the back of its wide-reaching transformation programme, which included not only a review on the corporation’s processes, structures and policies, but also a restructuring of its balance sheet through divestment strategy. The divestment strategy targets non-strategic assets and a turnaround programme, which targets non-performing investments.

Managing Director Gaetsaloe commented that this growth was largely driven by unwavering commitment to executing the company’s five-year strategy. “Part of that is execution of our transformation to allow the business to tackle the prevailing market conditions, as well as risk management capability across BDC,” he said.

Gaetsaloe however indicted that the journey to profitability is still at an early stage as the corporation is yet to overcome the challenges. Some of these challenges include amongst others; non-performing assets and non-strategic assets and high cost of capital especially in developmental projects.