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Gijima positive on pipeline

Nicola Mawson
By Nicola Mawson, Contributor.
Johannesburg, 01 Oct 2014
Gijima's R100 million rights offer is a bid to recapitalise it for growth, says CEO Eileen Wilton.
Gijima's R100 million rights offer is a bid to recapitalise it for growth, says CEO Eileen Wilton.

Gijima has inked an order book of more than R1 billion-worth for the current financial year, which started in July, and is actively pursuing business worth another R6 billion as it seeks to bolster its top line.

CEO Eileen Wilton says, speaking on the back of the company's results yesterday, that Gijima has stabilised and is now gearing up for growth.

Wilton says Gijima has only just completed the first year of its three-year restructuring process and is not quite yet in profitable territory. However, when the process started, she promised the market there would be an improvement in its bottom line, which has happened.

Yesterday, the group noted its net loss came in at R153 million, a vast improvement on last year's R294 million. Wilton says - normalising the profit - Gijima has actually turned a R57 million loss into a R3 million profit.

Wilton notes the company also grew its earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation 69%, which is "not to be sneezed at in the current economy". She adds the company has clawed back R200 million in savings.

Gijima has also gone to the market to raise another R100 million - on top of the R150 million it sought a year ago. Wilton says this bid, which is being underwritten by majority shareholder Guma Holdings, is a move to give Gijima sufficient capacity to enable growth.

Guma is underwriting the rights offer, which could result in the company, founded by Gijima chairman Robert Gumede, holding more than half of Gijima's stock. Shares in the company have lost ground since the results were published, and declined 14.63% to 35c in early morning trade today, a new low.

However, Wilton is more confident than the market, noting Gijima has cleaned up its books, strengthened its executive team, stabilised its customer base, staff and numbers, and is now focused on growth.

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