12-Month T-Bills Yield Hits 15.18% as OVN Rates Drops to 12.29%

By Aduragbemi Omiyale President Bola Tinubu has said the 2024 budget presented to the joint session of the National Assembly on Wednesday was designed to achieve macroeconomic stability, a better investment environment, greater access to social security, poverty reduction and enhanced human capital development. According to him, if these goals are achieved, the standard of living of Nigerians will improve and the citizens will enjoy the dividends of democracy. While presenting the 2024 Appropriation Bills to the parliament yesterday, the President said this was why he christened the budget proposal as the Budget of Renewed Hope. Mr Tinubu told the

By Modupe Gbadeyanka Business owners in Lagos have been assured of more incentives by the state governor, Mr Babajide Sanwo-Olu, who added that this is part of his administration’s commitment to reforms aimed at improving the ease of doing business and enhancing investment opportunities. Speaking at the commissioning of the newly-built wet hair production factory of Godrej Nigeria Limited, the Governor said his government would continue to pursue actions that would eliminate red tapes and regulatory impediments hindering the growth of businesses in the state, thereby demonstrating his willingness for continued collaboration with the private sector to improve the livelihood

By Adedapo Adesanya The boards of insurance companies operating in the country have been charged by the National Insurance Commission (NAICOM) to embrace the measures put in place to tackle the challenges of unpaid claims. The Commissioner for Insurance, Mr Sunday Thomas, expressed worry over the number of outstanding claims in the sector despite efforts by the regulator to address the issue. Mr Thomas, who is also the chief executive of NAICOM, said the organisation, in collaboration with members of the Insurers’ Committee, has taken decisions and incepted measures designed to tame the menace of unpaid claims. Speaking at the

By Dipo Olowookere Food Concepts Plc, the parent company of one of the top Quick Service Restaurant (QSR) in Nigeria, Chicken Republic, is planning to raise a fresh capital to assist it boost its operations in the country. Food Concepts is a firm listed on the NASD OTC Exchange and the company, which commenced operations in 2001, wants to raise the funds, about N3.6 billion through rights issue. According to a regulatory note cited by Business Post at the weekend, Food Concepts hopes to use proceeds from the exercise to finance its growth and expansion. It was disclosed that the

By Dipo Olowookere Last week, investors transacted 1.410 billion shares worth N15.510 billion in 19,025 deals on the floor of the Nigerian Exchange (NGX) Limited compared with the 598.817 million shares worth N14.234 billion transacted in 15,859 deals in the preceding week. Data from the exchange indicated that financial stocks dominated the activity chart, with 804.570 million units valued at N6.300 billion traded in 9,922 deals, contributing 57.04 per cent and 40.62 per cent to the total trading volume and value, respectively. Shares in the agriculture industry followed with 357.623 million units worth N287.992 million in 560 deals, and stocks

By Modupe Gbadeyanka Chinese multinational networking and telecommunications equipment and services company, Huawei, has been sued by several patent owners in MPEG LA’s AVC Patent Portfolio License for allegedly infringing patents essential to the AVC/H.264 (MPEG-4 Part 10) digital video coding standard used in mobile devices and other products. MPEG LA announced on Wednesday that several patent owners in MPEG LA’s AVC Patent Portfolio License have filed patent enforcement actions in the Landgericht Düsseldorf, Germany against Huawei Technologies Deutschland GmbH. According to the complaints, Huawei offers mobile phone products in Germany, which allegedly use patent-protected AVC methods without licenses with

By Modupe Gbadeyanka On Wednesday, August 29, 2018, the 26th OTC FX Futures contract, NGUS AUG 29 2018, with contract amount of $349.44 million, matured and settled on FMDQ. According to FMDQ OTC Exchange, this maturity brings the total value of matured Naira-settled OTC FX Futures contracts on the platform, since the inception of the market in June 2016, to about $11.02 billion. Business Post reports that the total value of the OTC FX Futures contracts traded so far is about $14.99 billion. The contract, which stopped trading on August 21, 2018, was valued for settlement against the Nigerian Autonomous

By Dipo Olowookere Popular pay TV service provider, DStv, has promised to give its subscribers in Africa the opportunity to watch the 2017 BET Awards, which holds on Tuesday, June 27, 2017 at 7pm and airs on BET (DStv channel 129). During the star-studded awards ceremony, there would be performances from Chris Brown, Lil Wayne, DJ Khaled, Big Sean as well as Trevor Noah and others. The iconic annual show will also have performances from previously announced hit makers including Bruno Mars, Future, Migos, Trey Songz and Tamar Braxton. The 2017 BET Awards has set the standard for one of

By Modupe Gbadeyanka Following tough market conditions in Nigeria, Diageo has announced that it would no longer increase its stake in Guinness Nigeria as earlier planned. This decision was made known in a statement issued on Tuesday by the company. In the statement signed by Diageo’s Secretary, Mr Rotimi Odusola, the company disclosed that it would now “focus its resources on continuing to support Guinness Nigeria.” Diageo explained that it backed out of its earlier plan to buy another 15.7 percent of Guinness Nigeria for up to N41.37 billion, raising its stake in the company to 70 percent, because of

By Adedapo Adesanya The United Nations through the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) has disclosed that global food commodity prices rose for the 10th conservative month in March, led by vegetable oils and dairy products. The FAO said this in its Food Price Index report released on Thursday, noting that in the third month of the year, the FAO food price index averaged 118.5 points in March, 2.1 per cent higher than in February and reaching its highest level since June 2014. It said the March increase was led by the FAO Vegetable Oil Price Index which rose 8.0 per

By Dipo Olowookere Ikeja Electric has been commended for the swift installation of meters in the University of Lagos (UNILAG) Estate in Isheri, Lagos. The meters were installed by the leading electricity company under the Meter Asset Provider scheme (MAP) put in place to narrow the metering gap in the country. Speaking on behalf of the community, Chairman of the Community Development Association (CDA), Mr Bashir Momodu, lauded the firm for the development, saying they can now control their consumption as they now pay for whatever they use. He advised IE to improve on its service in terms of power