Hippo Valley to invest US$15m
CLOUDINE MATOLA
Hippo Valley Estates, a publicly traded sugar producer, will invest approximately US$15m to retool and recapitalise its operations to increase its competitiveness in the market, business Times can report.
This was confirmed by the Hippo Valley CEO, Tendai Masawi.
He spoke to Business Times on the sidelines of the company’s annual general meeting last week.
“……we need to increase efficiency in the factories, and we need to maximize our sales in the domestic market.
“Its very important because we have to compete and be best in class like any other mill that is running. Yes, capital expenditure has to be spent. I’m looking at close to about US$15m that we need to spend for us to be able to retool the whole plant completely. It’s not only retooling the plant,” Masawi said.
He added: “Well, there are various ways of funding. I mean you can either borrow from the banks. But we have got to trade carefully these days because you know we are also going through a phase of currency changes, so I’m not at liberty for me to say I’m going to be growing 100% of it from US dollars from the banks or otherwise. You know what has been happening in Zimbabwe.”
Masawi said Hippo Valley will introduce new varieties.
“We also have got to introduce new varieties in our fields in terms of agronomy of what we want to do because with new varieties being introduced, you’re going to be getting better yields,” Masawi said.
