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Patrick Bitature is back in the chairman's seat at Umeme, and the company he's returning to is in better shape than it was a year ago.
Uganda's biggest electricity distributor wrapped up its annual general meeting by handing Bitature the board chairmanship for a third time, a vote of confidence in a man who has been part of the company's story since 2007. The news landed alongside a profit announcement that gave shareholders something to feel good about: 148.2 billion Ugandan shillings in net earnings for 2022, up 6.5% from the previous year.
Revenue barely moved, climbing from 1.885 trillion shillings in 2021 to 1.887 trillion in 2022. But in a business environment where energy companies across Africa have been squeezed by inflation, currency pressure and unpredictable regulation, holding steady on revenue while growing profit is not nothing.
Bitature knows the terrain. He took his first turn as chairman back in 2007, the same year Umeme was still finding its footing as a privatized utility. Since then he has watched the company grow from a loss-making, politically controversial experiment into a dual-listed company with shares trading in both Kampala and Nairobi. He runs the Simba Group on the side, a conglomerate that touches telecoms, real estate, hospitality, mining and energy across East Africa. He also serves as Australia's honorary consul in Uganda and sits on the board of Mulago National Referral Hospital. The man stays busy.
Shareholders left the AGM with more than just a familiar name at the top. The board proposed an 87 billion shilling dividend payout, a number that stands out sharply against the 19.8 billion distributed for 2020. That kind of jump tends to get noticed. Whether it reads as a reward for patience or a calculated move ahead of what could be tricky concession negotiations is a matter of interpretation, but investors who have ridden out years of share price swings are unlikely to complain.
Umeme serves about 97% of all electricity consumed in Uganda, reaching customers across 28 administrative districts. It has spent years pushing down energy losses, which were at 26.1% back in 2012. The company has since brought those numbers into the mid-teens, which is a meaningful improvement even if the work is never really finished.
What comes next is the harder question. The concession Umeme operates under with the Ugandan government has become a live issue, particularly as Karuma dam and other generation projects push more electricity onto a grid that needs constant investment to keep up. Both sides have said publicly that the arrangement deserves another look. Bitature will be at the table for those conversations, which is exactly where a lot of people expected him to be.
