Nigeria's Stanbic IBTC Holdco Q1 pretax profit falls 46 pct

 

Stanbic IBTC Holding Company , a unit of South Africa's Standard Bank, said on Thursday its first quarter pretax profit fell 46 percent to 4.81 billion naira ($24 million) versus the same period last year.


Stanbic did not give a reason for the decline in profit but said in a statement that revenue rose to 33.73 billion naira for the period to end-March from 30.22 billion naira a year ago.

Nigeria's Union Bank says 2014 pretax profit jumps 80 pct

Nigeria's Union Bank said on Thursday its 2014 pretax profit grew 80 percent to 26.97 billion naira ($136 million), compared with the previous year.


Revenue rose to 135.89 billion naira compared with 121.39 billion naira the previous year, the bank said, adding that it narrowed its impairment charge for credit loss to 4.82 billion naira from 12 billion.

Hope Rises As PIB Gets Final Push

 

THERE are indications that the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)-led National Assembly is in talks with the leadership of the Assembly to ensure that the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) is passed before June 4, 2015 when a new legislative body will be inaugurated.

This comes as the latest audit report of the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) said Nigeria lost a whopping N1.960,108 trillion to crude oil theft and sabotage in 2012.

The Guardian gathered in Abuja yesterday that still smarting from the loss of the presidential election, the ruling party may have launched a last-minute effort at ensuring the passage of the bill as a parting gift to Nigerians.

The party also sees the possibility of the All Progressives Congress (APC), which will assume the majority party in the National Assembly from June 4, passing the bill in record time. Since the PIB is seen as a major revolution of the oil and gas sector, the PDP has reportedly told its members in the Senate to ensure its passage.

Read more here...

NNPC blames fuel scarcity on elections, threatens hoarders

The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation has blamed the prolonged fuel scarcity experienced in Kaduna and Nasarawa states and the Federal Capital Territory on the recently concluded general elections.

It also threatened to sanction marketers who hoard and divert the product, stressing that this had led to artificial scarcity of petrol in the affected states and the FCT.

In the past two weeks, petrol scarcity in Abuja and its environs had gone from bad to worse but the NNPC had kept mum on the development during the period.

Although the situation seemed to be abating by Wednesday as more filling stations sold the product, our correspondent observed that there were still long queues at the few outlets that dispensed petrol to motorists.

Nigeria inflation edges higher to 8.5 pct yr/yr in March

The National Bureau of Statistics, NBS, says Nigeria's consumer inflation hit 8.5 percent year-on-year in March, up slightly from 8.4 pct in February.

The Statistics office, which stated this in its latest inflation data on Thursday, food inflation, the biggest contributor to the main consumer index was 9.4 percent in March, unchanged from the previous month.

GTBank Q1 pretax profit rises 17 pct

Nigeria's Guaranty Trust Bank said on Thursday its first-quarter pretax profit grew 17 percent to 32.65 billion naira ($164 million), from the same period a year ago but did not give a reason for the rise.

Revenue also rose to 79.01 billion naira for the three months to end-March from 67 billion, the bank said in a statement.

Templeton's Mobius says good time to invest in Nigerian stocks

Veteran emerging markets investor, Franklin Templeton's Mark Mobius said on Thursday that it was a good time to invest in Nigeria, which he sees as one of the most attractive frontier market destinations.

"There are significant challenges ahead, but we believe the positives outweigh the negatives and think it's a good time to invest in Nigeria - if we are patient and selective," Mobius, who runs the Templeton Emerging Markets Trust said in a statement.

Nigerian presidential elections at the end of March brought to power former military strongman Muhammadu Buhari, in what was the first democratic defeat of an incumbent in Africa's biggest economy.

Nigeria auctions 70 bln naira bond at lower yields

 

The Debt Management Office says Nigeria raised 70 billion naira ($352 million) at lower yields across all tenors during a bond auction on Wednesday.

The debt office said in a notice the total subscriptions stood at 184.72 billion naira, compared with 119.14 billion naira at the last auction.

The office said it had sold 20 billion naira worth of the 5-year bond at 14.44 percent, down from 16.49 percent at its previous sale on March 11.

The 10-year paper was sold at 14.22 percent against 16.84 percent previously, raising a total of 25 billion naira, while 25 billion naira worth of the 20-year debt note was sold at a yield of 14.45 percent compared with 16.99 percent previously.

The low yield at the auction was in tandem with prevailing yields at the secondary market, which have been falling after Nigeria held peaceful national elections.

Ghana's consumer inflation rises to 16.6 pct in March

Ghana's annual consumer price inflation rose marginally to 16.6 percent in March from 16.5 percent in the previous month, the statistics office said on Wednesday.


The West African nation started a three-year aid program worth $918 million with the International Monetary Fund this month to fix its economy, dogged by deficits, widening public debt and high inflation.

South Africa faces power cuts for 4th straight day

 

South African utility Eskom resumed widespread power cuts on Wednesday, leaving millions without electricity for a fourth day in a row but a government minister ruled out the chances of a total blackout.
Africa's most advanced economy is in the middle of its worst electricity crisis since 2008 and South Africans are subjected to frequent controlled blackouts, which Eskom implements to prevent the grid from collapsing.

 

 

South Africa on Tuesday lost a quarter of its power supply in one of its worst power outages in years in both scheduled maintenance and plant breakdowns. Some supply had been restored by Wednesday, but the power outages remained widespread.

Minister of Public Enterprises, Lynne Brown said despite the seriousness of the power supply constraints, South Africa was not at risk of facing a total blackout.


More here...

Nokia aims to become networks giant with Alcatel-Lucent deal

 

Nokia is to buy ailing French telecom company Alcatel-Lucent for around 15.6 billion euros ($16.5 billion) through a public exchange of shares in France and the United States, in a bid that will see the newly created company become a leading global networks operator.

Though Alcatel-Lucent has been racking up billions of euros of losses since its creation in 2006, Nokia seems to believe it can cut costs and hopes the deal will give it scale in the market of providing the networks that mobile phones use.

The Finnish company said Wednesday that the all-share transaction will be on the basis of 0.55 of a new Nokia share for every share of Alcatel-Lucent. According to the deal, Alcatel-Lucent shareholders would own 33.5 percent of the fully diluted share capital of the combined company, with Nokia shareholders owning 66.5 percent.

Nokia stock was down nearly 2 percent at 7.35 euros in late trading in Helsinki while Alcatel-Lucent plunged more than 14 percent in Paris.

Read More Here:

Nigeria Overnight Rate Hits 90 Pct, Nears Record High

 

 Nigeria overnight rate spiked to 90 percent , near record highs, up from 60 percent on Monday, dealers said, two days after the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) debited lenders to enforce its cash reserve requirements.

Rates have been rising sharply for two days — the overnight lending rate stood at 27 percent on Friday last week, before the CBN bank withdrew the funds.

Rates set a record high of 100 percent in February.

Traders said the open balance with the central bank stood at N26 billion as at Monday, down from around N160 billion last week.

CBN cuts annual overseas spending from $150,000 to $50,000

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has slashed annual overseas spending by Nigerians using any Nigerian banks debit card from $150,000 to $50,000.

It has also brought down the daily usage card limit to $300. According to the CBN, the move is being taken to reduce the pressure on the Naira.

In a circular signed by the director, Trade and Exchange Department, Olakanmi Gbadamosi, the CBN said the new limit takes effect from Monday, April 13, 2015.

The circular however did not state if there would be restrictions for individuals with multiple naira denominated cards from different banks.

CBN disburses 20% of MSME fund

The Central Bank of Nigeria says about 20 per cent of the N220 billion Micro, Small, and Medium Scale Enterprises (MSMEs) fund has been disbursed to beneficiaries.

CBN Director, Banking Supervision, Mrs. Tokunbo Martins, said the supervisory bank was working on ways of ensuring that more funds get to the critical sectors of the economy.

Head, Relationship Management, MSME Development Finance Department, Tobin Jonathan, said CBN was jolted by low access to the fund by operators.

CBN, he said, is worried that since the fund was launched last August only insignificant portion has been disbursed to operators because of stringent conditions attached to accessing the funds.

MSME-operators, Ibrahim said, were complaining that the criteria were too difficult to meet, hence CBN Governor Godwin Emefiele relaxed them to make the funds more accessible.

He added that the CBN also addressed other complaints by participating financial institutions, including the spread of profit to cover their cost of operations.

NUPENG Sets Agenda for Buhari in Petroleum Industry

Nigeria Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers, NUPENG, yesterday in Lagos, set an agenda for the incoming government of General Muhammed Buhari, GMD, retd, in the Petroleum industry, saying the government must end importation of petroleum products within a record time.

This came as the union urged the outgoing National Assembly to pass the protracted Petroleum Industry Bill, PIB, before its tenure elapsed in June.

At a briefing, NUPENG president, Mr. Igwe Achese, noted that the incoming government must also ensure the safety of the nation's pipelines network to reduce the haulage of products by roads with its negative consequences including loss of lives through road accidents and traffic gridlock especially on Apapa-Oshodi Expressway which had been causing untold hardships for road users among others.

According to him, among the expectations of NUPENG from the incoming government were that the "government must ensure job security in the sector, as the cardinal programme of the party is job creation. The four refineries must be rehabilitated and new ones established to end or reduce massive importation of petroleum products into the country.

"Government must also protect the nation's pipelines from vandals because if the pipelines are effectively protected, with public depots scattered across the country, products will move through the pipelines to all the major depots across the country." This will reduce the pressures on our roads with its consequences such as road accidents and gridlocks especially in Lagos that has been creating untold hardships for citizens. Again, without the safety of the pipelines, crude cannot even get to refineries such as the Kaduna refineries. The government must also rehabilitate and expand all the access roads to the refineries."

FG RESTATES COMMITMENT TO FINDING CHIBOK GIRLS, FOUNDATION WORK STARTS ON CHIBOK SECONDARY SCHOOL

The Permanent Secretary of the Federal Ministry of Finance, Mrs Anastasia Daniel-Nwaobia, representing the Coordinating Minister for the Economy and Minister of Finance, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala today met with representatives of the Chibok community to assure them of the federal government’s commitment to rescuing the abducted Chibok School girls and to also update them on the status of the safe school initiative.

She informed the representatives of the Chibok community that government has never relented in its efforts at the rescue of the Chibok school girls and has been pursuing a two-pronged approach: pursuing the release of the abducted girls as well as ensuring that the children at home are able to go back to schools that are safe and secure.

She noted that to fold hands and do nothing will approximate to accepting defeat which is exactly what Boko Haram whose agenda is to stop Nigerians from going to school wants.

The Permanent Secretary informed them that the architectural model of the Chibok Secondary is ready along with the budget and that the Nigerian Army Corps of Engineers have been mobilized to commence construction. She however stated clearly that this is but part of the overall strategy of government for restoring sanity to the community but that the rescue of the girls remains the priority.