Economy
African Alliance Plots Strategy to Gain Substantial Market Share
By Dipo Olowookere
The management of a foremost life insurer, African Alliance Insurance Plc, has said its main focus at the moment is to ensure the company attain a substantial market share.
The Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer of African Alliance Insurance, Mrs Joyce Ojemudia, speaking at the company’s hybrid 52nd Annual General Meeting (AGM) held in Lagos and streamed online, said the team has plotted a strategy to achieve this goal.
“Our main focus next year is to grow our market share substantially. This will be achieved by a massive beef-up of the sales team (field force and corporate marketers) and the provision of necessary tools to aid marketing activities.
“We will reopen branches in locations we have found promising and enhance our presence in existing locations,” the respected sales guru was quoted as saying at the event via a statement signed by the firm’s Brand, Media and Communications Manager, Mr Bankole Banjo.
“Our quest to maintain physical presence resonates with our integrity drive as insurance is a business of trust, especially amongst the retail market. This effort will be supported by digital technology as we adopt a two-prong onslaught on the market,” she added.
Mrs Ojemudia also listed as priorities the renewal of the company’s ISO certification as a business tool to enhance market confidence; staff training and retraining to aid knowledge acquisition; recruitment into key technical areas as well as massive IT upgrades to support the business goals and optimise costs.
Earlier, the company’s Chairman, Dr Anthony Okocha, highlighted the many signs of progress of the company in the 2020 financial year.
“Your Company was able to grow its asset base by 29 per cent from over N40 billion to N56.3 billion. This was as a result of substantial capital injection which gave us a boost on our bottom line to the tune of N5.67 billion from the 2019 loss position of N7.04 billion.
These profits have been immediately assigned as retained earnings to further boost our ongoing quest to revamp our books and grow the overall financial standing of your Company,” he said.
Business Post reports that during the meeting, the company announced the retirement of Mr Okocha as chairman of the board effective September 20, 2021.
A non-executive director of the company, Sylva Ogwemoh (SAN), who chaired the meeting, described the retired Chairman as a man who was passionate about the cause of African Alliance Insurance Plc.
“For a man to have led the board for 9 years is testament to his resilience despite all odds. We wish him a happy retirement and on behalf of the board, management, staff and shareholders of the company, we thank him for his contributions to the growth of the company,” the legal practitioner said.
Recall that under Mr Okocha’s watch, the company successfully conducted the first rebranding exercise in its 61-year history firmly making it attractive to younger professionals and repositioning it for future success.
In the year under review, African Alliance declared a profit before tax of N5.67 billion compared to a loss of N7.04 billion in the preceding year, representing over 1300 per cent year-on-year increase.
Further analysis of the books showed that the company paid N8.16 billion in claims, a 21 per cent reduction year-on-year on the previous year’s figure of N10.4 billion.
This, according to the Chairman, was a “result of shrewd underwriting/ vibrant risk selection process which saw us cede strategically to reinsurers.”
The firm’s income from investments dropped also by 19 per cent from N3.02 billion to N2.46 billion, a direct outcome of the decline in market rates, however, the company’s operating expenses were also reduced by 14 per cent as a precautionary counterbalance to the reduced earnings.
Incorporated in 1960, African Alliance is widely regarded as the strongest life specialist in the industry. With a policyholder base of over 50,000 policies, spanning more than three generations, the company is adequately positioned to provide innovative and customized plans for the Nigerian market.
By Adedapo Adesanya
The Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) has once again trimmed its 2024 and 2025 oil demand growth forecasts.
The bloc made this in its latest monthly oil market report for December 2024.
The 2024 world oil demand growth forecast is now put at 1.61 million barrels per day from the previous 1.82 million barrels per day.
For 2025, OPEC says the world oil demand growth forecast is now at 1.45 million barrels per day, which is 900,000 barrels per day lower than the 1.54 million barrels per day earlier quoted.
On the changes, the group said that the downgrade for this year owes to more bearish data received in the third quarter of 2024 while the projections for next year relate to the potential impact that will arise from US tariffs.
The oil cartel had kept the 2024 outlook unchanged until August, a view it had first taken in July 2023.
OPEC and its wider group of allies known as OPEC+ earlier this month delayed its plan to start raising output until April 2025 against a backdrop of falling prices.
Eight OPEC+ member countries – Saudi Arabia, Russia, Iraq, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Kazakhstan, Algeria, and Oman – decided to extend additional crude oil production cuts adopted in April 2023 and November 2023, due to weak demand and booming production outside the group.
In April 2023, these OPEC+ countries decided to reduce their oil production by over 1.65 million barrels per day as of May 2023 until the end of 2023. These production cuts were later extended to the end of 2024 and will now be extended until the end of December 2026.
In addition, in November 2023, these producers had agreed to voluntary output cuts totalling about 2.2 million barrels per day for the first quarter of 2024, in order to support prices and stabilise the market.
These additional production cuts were extended to the end of 2024 and will now be extended to the end of March 2025; they will then be gradually phased out on a monthly basis until the end of September 2026.
Members have made a series of deep output cuts since late 2022.
They are currently cutting output by a total of 5.86 million barrels per day, or about 5.7 per cent of global demand. Russia also announced plans to reduce its production by an extra 471,000 barrels per day in June 2024.
By Aduragbemi Omiyale
A minority equity stake in Chappal Energies Mauritius Limited has been acquired by a Nigerian energy firm, Aradel Holdings Plc.
This deal came a few days after Chappal Energies purchased a 53.85 per cent equity stake in Equinor Nigeria Energy Company Limited (ENEC).
Chappal Energies went into the deal with Equinor to take part in the oil and gas lease OML 128, including the unitised 20.21 per cent stake in the Agbami oil field, operated by Chevron.
Since production started in 2008, the Agbami field has produced more than one billion barrels of oil, creating value for Nigerian society and various stakeholders.
As part of the deal, Chappal will assume the operatorship of OML 129, which includes several significant prospects and undeveloped discoveries (Nnwa, Bilah and Sehki).
The Nnwa discovery is part of the giant Nnwa-Doro field, a major gas resource with significant potential to deliver value for Nigeria.
In a separate transaction, on July 17, 2024, Chappal and Total Energies sealed an SPA for the acquisition by Chappal of 10 per cent of the SPDC JV.
The relevant parties to this transaction are working towards closing out this transaction and Ministerial Approval and NNPC consent to accede to the Joint Operating Agreement have been obtained.
“This acquisition is in line with diversifying our asset base, deepening our gas competencies and gaining access to offshore basins using low-risk approaches.
“We recognise the strategic role of gas in Nigeria’s energy future and are happy to expand our equity holding in this critical resource.
“We are committed to the cause of developing the significant value inherent in the assets, which will be extremely beneficial to the country.
“Aradel hopes to bring its proven execution competencies to bear in supporting Chappal’s development of these opportunities,” the chief executive of Aradel Holdings, Mr Adegbite Falade, stated.
By Adedapo Adesanya
Afriland Properties Plc helped the NASD Over-the-Counter (OTC) Securities Exchange record a 0.04 per cent gain on Tuesday, December 10 as the share price of the property investment rose by 34 Kobo to N16.94 per unit from the preceding day’s N16.60 per unit.
As a result of this, the market capitalisation of the bourse went up by N380 million to remain relatively unchanged at N1.056 trillion like the previous trading day.
But the NASD Unlisted Security Index (NSI) closed higher at 3,014.36 points after it recorded an addition of 1.09 points to Monday’s closing value of 3,013.27 points.
The NASD OTC securities exchange recorded a price loser and it was Geo-Fluids Plc, which went down by 2 Kobo to close at N3.93 per share, in contrast to the preceding day’s N3.95 per share.
During the trading session, the volume of securities bought and sold by investors increased by 95.8 per cent to 2.4 million units from the 1.2 million securities traded in the preceding session.
However, the value of shares traded yesterday slumped by 3.7 per cent to N4.9 million from the N5.07 million recorded a day earlier, as the number of deals surged by 27.3 per cent to 14 deals from 11 deals.
Geo-Fluids Plc remained the most active stock by volume (year-to-date) with 1.7 billion units sold for N3.9 billion, trailed by Okitipupa Plc with 752.2 million units valued at N7.8 billion, and Afriland Properties Plc with 297.5 million units worth N5.3 million.
Also, Aradel Holdings Plc remained the most active stock by value (year-to-date) with 108.7 million units worth N89.2 billion, followed by Okitipupa Plc with 752.2 million units valued at N7.8 billion, and Afriland Properties Plc with 297.5 million units sold for N5.3 billion.
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