The Nigerian Investment Promotion Commission has established that Lagos, Rivers, Oyo and five other states received investment announcements worth $8.9 billion between July and September 2021. This was made known by the Director of Strategic and Services of the Commission, Abubakar Yerima, on Tuesday. Yerima spoke when he unveiled investments for the third quarter of 2021. According to the report, Lagos State took the lion share of the investment, accounting for 81 per cent (US$7.29 billion) of the total in manufacturing, information and communications, finance and insurance, human health and social services and electricity. In the same period, Rivers State…
Author: Temitope Nlewemchi
As the world’s largest eCommerce company, Amazon, witnessed strong buyers’ pressures in recent months, Jeff Bezos experienced impressive gains in his net valuation. After the closing of Thursday’s trading session, the 57-year-old American billionaire earned $4.24 billion. Earlier this week, while Bezos attended the COP 26 climate summit in Glasgow, he sold shares of Amazon worth over $2 billion. In a speech at the summit, Bezos, the world’s second-richest person, declared he would invest $2 billion from his Earth Fund in restoring nature and transforming food systems. “We should protect what we have left, recover what we’ve lost, and grow…
The management of the West African Power Pool (WAPP), established that its North Core Project which is estimated to cost $586 million by completion would be finalized by 2023. This was disclosed by the Chairman, Executive Board of the West African Power Pool (WAPP) and Acting Managing Director, TCN, Mr Sule Abdulaziz, at the 52nd WAPP Executive Board meeting in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, part of the 16th session of the WAPP General Assembly. The North-Core transmission line project would link the electricity grids of Nigeria with Niger, Burkina Faso, and Benin. Abdulaziz said, “the WAPP North Core Project that seeks…
Semicolon Africa, an EdTech startup in Lagos, focused on creating employment and economic opportunities by training software engineers and techpreneurs has closed a $1.2 million seed round of funding to allow for an increase in its training, talent management, and project delivery capacity. The startup wants to bridge the gap in digital training in African which currently has a low count compared to other parts of the world where the number is high; as well as solve unemployment issues. This is as a joint report by Google and the International Finance Corporation (IFC) in 2020 disclosed that there are only…
Google’s parent company, Alphabet Inc. has made a $1 billion equity investment in the Chicago Mercantile Exchange Group, the exchange responsible for many crypto derivatives products. This marks the first time the company is investing in cryptocurrency-related products. In a press release by CME group, the company announced the $1 billion investment from Alphabet in addition to a 10-year strategic partnership with Google Cloud which is aimed at accelerating the exchange’s move to the Cloud and changing the way global derivatives markets operate. Google made the investment through the company’s non-voting convertible preferred stock. The announcement also stated, “Under the…
Uber discloses its third-quarter earnings. In after-hours trading, shares rose 1% after a dip. A drop in the value of Uber’s investment holdings, especially Didi, led to a net loss of $2.4 billion for the quarter. Some of those losses were offset by stakes in Zomato, Aurora, and Joby, according to the company. In the same quarter one year ago, Uber reported a net loss of $1.09 billion. According to Uber, it also met the end-of-year target for adjusted EBITDA profit. A company’s EBITDA is earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization. The car-hailing giant earned $8 million in adjusted…
The Federal Government has disclosed that it will soon begin monitoring the implementation of the National Minimum Wage Act 2019, which raised Nigeria’s minimum wage from N18,000 to N30,000. This was disclosed by the Chairman/CEO of the National Salaries, Incomes and Wages Commission, Mr Ekpo Nta, in Abuja, on Thursday. He added that the monitoring of the Minimum wage would be an interagency collaboration meant to gather evidence on compliance and difficulties faced by stakeholders; and also enable the federal government to plan the next national minimum wage act. Those who have complied fully will be put on honours list and sanctions…
Square generated $1.82 billion in Bitcoin revenue during the third quarter of 2021. Square’s payment application, Cash App was responsible for the revenue generation as the total revenue generated for the nine months now stands at $8.05 billion. Square’s Bitcoin revenue accounted for 47.22% of the total revenue generated in the third quarter while it also accounted for approximately 60% of the total revenue generated in the 9 months of 2021. Looking at its YoY performance, for the third quarter, its Bitcoin revenue grew by 11.13% while on its total nine months performance, its Bitcoin revenue is up over 185%.…
At closing of trade today, International Breweries Plc share price depreciated by 2.63% to close at N5.55 per share, taking the Market capitalization from N153.11 billion to N149.08 billion. International Breweries Plc, today, 5th November 2021 recorded a loss in share price which can be attributed to investors’ negative sentiment which triggered sell-pressures in the shares of the company, inducing a loss of N4.03 billion in market capitalization at the close of trading activities on the Nigerian Exchange. The shares of the quoted brewery declined from N5.70 per share at the start of the trading day, to N5.55 per…
Nigerian deposit money banks set to stop the acceptance of the old £20 and £50 notes as the legal tender status of these notes expire in less than a year. This is in line with the announcement by The Bank of England to withdraw the legal tender status of the paper £20 and £50 paper notes and replace them with their polymer equivalent, with a deadline of September 30, 2022. With the move in progress, Nigeria banks have a small window to discontinue acceptance of these notes, as some banks have already contacted their consumers about the development. According to…
An Ikoyi division of the Lagos State high court has threatened to sanction bank executives who fail to release the amount to the credit of Bamise and Elizabeth Ajetunmobi, owners of Imagine Global Holding Company Ltd. and Imagine Global solution Ltd. At the last adjourned date, the court had restrained commercial banks from releasing N11.79 billion funds to the couple. The judge also ordered banks to file and serve the amount on the applicants’ counsel, an affidavit disclosing the balance in the defendant account within seven days. The presiding judge, Justice Toyin Oyekan-Abdullahi expressed displeasure at the conduct of banks…
Nigerian Exchange Limited (NGX) held its sixth edition of its Market Data Workshop on Wednesday, 3 November 2021. This year’s event was held virtually in collaboration with Official Partners, Zenith Bank, Reliance Infosystems Limited, Infoware and MTN Nigeria; Gold Sponsor, CSCS Plc; and Corporate Sponsors, United Capital, NG Clearing, Cordros, Neulogic, Apel Asset Management and ARM. With the theme, “How Market Data Powers Investment Strategies Using Derivatives Products”, the workshop was designed to provide capital market stakeholders – particularly institutional investors, Actuaries, Portfolio Managers – with insights into price, valuation and investment strategies using Derivatives and Fixed Income Products, as…
Point of Sale transactions in Nigeria marginally by decreases 0.74% to N552.26 billion in October 2021 compared to N556.36 billion recorded in the previous month. This is in line with the recent data released by the Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System (NIBSS). The value of POS transactions dropped despite a 33.6% increase in the volume of transactions to 91.39 million from 87.71 million recorded in September 2021. Further analysis of the data showed that the number of POS terminals deployed in October rose by 7.6% month-on-month to 764,589 in the review month. The volume of POS transactions continues to increase across…
Nigerian lender, Unity Bank Plc has announced gross earnings of N36.18 billion for the nine-month period ended September 30, 2021, and a 23% growth of profit-after-tax totalling N1.94 billion for the same period. A review of the unaudited results for the 3rd quarter of 2021 released to the Nigerian Exchange Group Limited showed that the bank’s gross earnings of N36.18 billion represents a moderate 7% growth from N33.9 billion recorded in the same period in 2020. Also, with the strong performance recorded during the period under review buoyed by a 31% growth in its loan book to N265.32 billion from…
An Abuja division of the federal high court has adjourned ruling on an application by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) seeking final forfeiture of the sum of $899,600 linked to former Bauchi State Secretary to the State Government (SSG), Ibrahim Ahmed Dandija, till January 31, 2022. In the suit marked: FHC/ABJ/CS/1986/19, EFCC is the applicant, Abdallah Suleiman is the first respondent, Ahmed Ibrahim Dandija the second respondent and Sigma Apartments Ltd is the 3rd respondent, according to NAN. The sum being suspected proceeds of illicit activities was recovered by EFCC from an apartment at Sigma Apartment, No 1…
The Nigerian Export Promotion Council has listed out 22 products that can enable Nigeria secure a zero oil plan. The NEPC made this known in its “Opportunities in the Export Market” report published recently as it noted that unemployment rate in Nigeria is at an all-time high of 33.6%, and the value of the Naira and revenue from crude oil exports are at an all-time low, coupled with the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic. They added that Nigeria must survive in a world in which it sells no more oil, as the zero oil plan is a strategic plan to…
Global energy giant, Shell, has unveiled the expansion to a new business line in Nigeria with the expansion of natural gas sales and distribution to meet the growing energy needs of wholesale consumers and provide more and cleaner energy across the country. The new business line, which is Shell Energy Nigeria will seek to deliver gas-based energy solutions to businesses across the country to help drive economic development while also delivering greater value from the country’s natural resources. According to a statement signed by the Media Relations Manager of Shell, Bamidele Odugbesan, the new business is expected to draw on…
The Debt Management Office (DMO) established the issue about N250 billion Sukuk to finance road projects. The DMO issued this in a statement released on Tuesday. The Sukuk is a strategic initiative that supports the development of infrastructure, promotes financial inclusion and deepens the domestic securities market. Since the establishment of the initiative in September 2017, DMO had issued three Sovereign Sukuk — 2017, 2018 and 2020 “Subsequent to the debut Sovereign Sukuk in 2017 in which N100 billion was raised to finance the rehabilitation and construction of twenty-five (25) road projects across the six (6) geopolitical zones,…
Banks, insurers and investors with around $130 trillion or 40% of the world’s capital at their disposal pledged on Wednesday to put limiting climate change at the centre of their work. An announcement made at the COP26 U.N. climate conference in Scotland commits its signatories to assuming a “fair share” of the effort to wean the world off fossil fuels. A main aim of the COP26 talks is to secure enough national promises here to cut greenhouse gas emissions – mostly from burning coal, oil and gas – to keep the rise in the global temperature to 1.5 degrees Celsius.…
The Central Bank of Nigeria has disbursed a total of N145.99 billion under its Non-Oil Export Stimulation Facility (NESF). This was made known in the CENTRAL BANK OF NIGERIA COMMUNIQUÉ NO. 138 OF THE 281ST MONETARY POLICY COMMITTEE MEETING. The apex bank through a series of interventions has tried to reduce the hardship and boost economic growth by promoting other lagging sectors. According to the CBN, “The Bank has disbursed a total of N145.99 billion under its Non-Oil Export Stimulation Facility (NESF). The CBN has revised the guidelines, working with Nigerian Export-Import Bank to improve access to the intervention and…