AMFacilities strategises to play big in retail sector

Alpha Mead Facilities and Management Services Limited (AMFacilities), Nigeria’s foremost facilities management company, says it is strategising to play big in the growing retail segment of the Nigerian property market.

Femi Akintunde, the company’s managing director and chief executive, who disclosed this at a press conference to announce the commencement of activities leading to this year’s World Facility Management Day celebration, noted that opportunities in the retail sector were quite compelling.

According to him, the company is scaling up skills for this purpose, promising that the full details of their strategy in this connection would be announced alongside their plan to enter into the security aspect of facilities management at their forthcoming FM Roundtable.

The FM Roundtable, already slated for June 27, 2013, at Eko Hotels in Lagos, is AMFacilities initiative marking the World FM Day which was initiated in 2008 by Global FM with the aim of raising the profile of the facility management profession on a global scale.

“The event has succeeded in mobilising hundreds of individuals, companies, associations and partners to celebrate their successes and show the world the important contributions facility management brings to the built environment,” he said.

The FM Roundtable, Akintunde explained, was inaugurated last year to provide a credible business forum to network, share ideas and forge lasting relationships among the key stakeholder-groups in the facility management industry.

“This is an annual thought leadership initiative by AMFacilities that brings together key stakeholders in the facility management industry to discuss common critical issues affecting them as well as chart a way forward for the industry in Nigeria. Participants are drawn from government, facility managers, industry associations, developers, financiers, resident associations and other relevant publics,” he added.

Unlike last year’s edition of the event that was wholly sponsored by AMFacilities, this year’s edition with the theme, ‘Creating an Enabling Environment for Sustainable Maintenance of Real Estate Assets and Public Infrastructure in Nigeria,’ is different.

According to Akintunde, there are organisations that have chosen to partner with his company to sponsor the event, adding that these companies cut across some of the major players from all sectors of the economy including real estate and construction, oil and gas, banking, telecoms, etc.

He said that a good number of speakers and discussants had been assembled for the roundtable, such as Oluranti Adebule, secretary to the Lagos State government; Mark Norris, principal reliability and asset management consultant, Scott Lister UK; Ayo Oluleye, dean, Faculty of Technology, University of Ibadan; Paul Weijers, head, construction and real estate, at Growth and Employment in States (GEMS ), and himself.

The discussants include Obafemi Hamzat, Lagos State commissioner for works and infrastructure; Muyiwa Falade, corporate infrastructure services manager, Shell Petroleum Development Company; Iyabo Aboaba, president, IFMA Nigeria; Sam Kareem, general manager, global real estate and facilities, ExxonMobil, among others.