Nico Life unveils K51bn infrastructure projects
Nico Life Insurance Company Limited has unveiled plans to invest about $85 million (K51 billion) in infrastructure development, including construction of a five-star hotel in Salima, 14-storey building in Lilongwe and expansion of Chichiri Shopping Centre in Blantyre.
Construction of the structures will see the company assets hit over K200 billion ($332,944,000) up from about K170 billion ($283,002,400), according to the company. Currently, Nico Life assets include shopping malls in Blantyre and Lilongwe, office complexes, shares in hotels, banks and several companies including health facilities.
Speaking in Mzuzu on Thursday during a meeting with Nico Life clients to update them on some developments in pensions, Nico Life Insurance chief executive officer Osman Karim said plans to have the hotel, office complex and expand Chichiri Shopping Centre are at an advanced stage.
He said the company has funds at hand and will not rely on loans. He said the money is from pension funds.
Said Karim: “Nico Life does not take loans. Nico has money that policyholders have contributed. Of course, some projects we will do with other partners. But we will lead the projects to ensure that they are designed in the way that policyholders want them to be.”
He said apart from the three projects there are several others, including residential houses, university hostels, mining and commercial buildings.
Nico Asset Managers chief investment officer Emmanuel Chokani said the company wants to have competitive and sustainable investment returns, but also develop new investment opportunities in-house.
On the Lilongwe office complex, he said land has already been identified close to Kang’ombe House in which Nico Life also has a stake.
Nico Life and Nico Asset Managers are subsidiaries of the Malawi Stock Exchange –listed financial services group, Nico Holdings Limited which also owns Nico General Insurance, NBS Bank, Nico Technologies and stakes in insurance companies in Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe
What type of reporting is this?are you advertising for NICO? wHY DO’NT YOU ALSO GET VIEWS FROM THE PARTICIPANTS(Their clients as alluded to in your reporting).At least the news was suppose to also get input/views from the clients who attend it.
Personally I was there and the whole meeting was a shamble, I regretted my time which I wasted there. That seminar as they called it was supposed to have a discussion not what they did,restricting people to ask direct but asking them to write on a piece of paper and drop it. How sure are we that the questions were read meeting the intention of the person who had asked it.