Samuel Ernest Essien

SKLD is an integrated corporate entity providing educational and office supplies, branded product distribution, technology, garment manufacturing and humanitarian aid procurement services through contracts, wholesale, retail and online channels. We started in 2000 as a one-stop back-to-school retail business serving parents and students in the city of Lagos, Nigeria. Over the period, we grew our retail network to the largest in Nigeria for exclusive back-to-school shopping and introduced office and lifestyle product categories into our offerings. Our retail brand is called SKIT store and our e-commerce platform is skit.ng We work with over 500 schools in Nigeria and environs to deliver generic and customized school uniforms for their students. Our flagship uniform brand is known as Marcel Hughes Apparel. We also deliver other educational supplies to schools and retailers across the country, representing brands like CASIO (calculators), Funskool (Educational Toys) and Qualatex (Balloons). We own and operate a mid-sized garment factory in Lagos employing over 100 garment workers (mostly women) and we have the capacity to produce over 10,000 garments per month. Items produced at our factory include school uniforms, medical scrubs, safety coveralls, security outfits and general workwear. We work with the UN and other international humanitarian organizations (NGOs) as procurement partner (vendor) to deliver a wide range of humanitarian supplies including educational kits, wash and dignity kits, hygiene kits, staple food items, shelter kits, water purification kits and other essential kits for their various intervention projects. Lastly we collaborate with education technology companies to bring relevant and strategic edtech solutions to the Nigerian and West African markets. We are open to strategic partnerships and collaborations that will deliver significant value to the markets we operate in and return good profits to investors and stakeholders.