ChamsCity’s Fate: A Huge Loss to Nigeria- Williams

Chams Plc, leading identity management solutions provider in Nigeria, has described the recent decision of the company to shut down the operation of its Chamscities, as a huge loss to the country’s technological development.

The company said the National ID Card Project would have benefited immensely from the facilities available at ChamsCity digital malls if everything had gone according to the implementation plan.

Mr. Olufemi Williams, managing director (designate), said “Yes, we built ChamsCity to facilitate the National ID Project and lost a whooping N9.2 billion of shareholders’ fund in the process as the NIMC decided to call off the concession agreement signed in 2010, 5 years into the deal. Consequently, we took the business decision to close down ChamsCity, but we are currently in arbitration over the disputes on the issue.

“We had to make provisions for this huge loss over the past few years between 2009, 2010, and 2011 with the company returning to profitability from 2012 to date.

“We declared huge losses in 2009 and 2010 as a result of the protracted delays on the project but the bad days are gone and company has returned to profitability since 2012. The difficult situation experienced helped us to restrategise and we were able to declare profit in 2012 and 2013 and also paid dividend to shareholders in 2014.

“We are certainly back on our feet,” Williams declared. He further explained that moving on from the National ID project, ChamsCity will now focus more on its ancillary services of Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) such as contact centre services, computer-based testing, pre-qualification employee tests and staff training at its new location in Victoria Island, Lagos.

Speaking on the Company’s financial position, Williams stressed that “For a company to be able to withstand a loss of N9.2bn is not an easy feat and certainly not commonplace. It is a pointer to the Company’s financial strength and the proof of this is evident in our financial results. In spite of the burden of the loss, the Group has since 2012 returned to profitability, and this growth pattern had been sustained.

“We continue to record improved performances and posts impressive financial results as shown in our last audited result. For 2014 financial year, our audited result showed 20% increase in gross revenue from N3.44 billion in 2013 to N4.12 billion in the 2014 financial year. Profit after tax rose by over 48.7 per cent and Shareholders’ fund rose by 26.5 per cent from N4.7 billion in 2013 to N5.9 billion in the 2014 financial year. In addition we also paid a dividend of 2 kobo per ordinary share of 50 kobo held totalling N93.921 million”.

As part of the effort to improve shareholder value, Williams said Chams Plc is fully involved in the implementation of the ongoing Bank Verification Number project (BVN) and is also working on a number of other identity management-related projects.

The company recently launched the ConfirmMe verification service platform which has been well received by the market.

ConfirmMe is a robust Credit, Credential and Identity verification platform that offers verification services both individuals and corporate organizations in Nigeria and beyond.

The system connects various data sources to offer verification and validation of academic, BVN, Identity, Credit and other records.

It is positioned to become the technology platform for online real-time verification services across Identity repositories like Bank Verification Number, Credit Bureaus, Academic and professional qualifications, driver’s licence, among others.

“We are positive that with the innovative products mentioned above (developed in-house by our team of software developers) the financial horizon of the company for 2015 would be rewarding to our shareholders and other stakeholders,” he said.