Economy
Honeywell Flour Board to Discuss Dividend Payment, FY Results
By Dipo Olowookere
The board of Honeywell Flour Mills Plc will on Tuesday, May 25, 2021, meet to discuss the financial results of the company for the 2021 financial year.
The meeting, according to a notice from the organisation signed by its secretary, Ms Yewande Giwa, will take place virtually by 11am tomorrow.
Honeywell Flour had previously suspended the meeting. The firm was recently in the eye of the storm when its Chairman, Mr Oba Otudeko, was removed as the Chairman of FBN Holdings Plc.
He was removed by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) after the board of First Bank of Nigeria formerly led by Mrs Ibukun Awosika, announced that Mr Gbenga Shobo will replace Mr Adesola Adeduntan as the Managing Director/CEO of the bank.
It was rumoured that Mr Otudeko engineered the replacement of Mr Adeduntan and when the CBN waded into the matter, it sacked the boards of FBN Holdings and First Bank, returned the MD/CEO to his position.
The apex bank then gave Honeywell Flour 48 hours to repay the loans it obtained from First Bank, while First Bank was given 90 days to “divest the equity investments in all non-permissible entities such as Honeywell Flour Mills and Bharti Airtel Nigeria Ltd and forward evidence of compliance.”
Business Post reliably gathered that Honeywell has made efforts to calm the nerves concerning the repayment of the loans worth billions of Naira to First Bank.
Last week, Honeywell said its board will meet on Tuesday to discuss the FY results of the company and there are feelers that the issue of the loans may be discussed.
“Notice is hereby given that the 87th meeting of the board of directors of Honeywell Flour Mills, which was previously postponed, will now hold on Tuesday, May 25, 2021, at 11am virtually.
“The company’s audited financial statements for the year ended March 31, 2021, as well as the issue of dividend declaration will be considered at the meeting.
“Please note that the closed period which was previously announced will still subsist until the release of the FY20/21 financial results to the exchange and the general public,” the disclosure said.
By Adedapo Adesanya
A 19.2 per cent moderation in the value of foreign exchange (forex) transactions recorded at the Investors and Exporters (I&E) window of the FX market helped the Naira with extra weight to push down the value of the Dollar by 0.01 per cent or 5 kobo on Friday, June 24.
According to data obtained by Business Post from the FMDQ Securities Exchange, the exchange rate of the Naira to the Dollar at the market window was N420.12/$1 in contrast to N420.17/$1 it closed on Thursday.
The value of FX trades at the window was $162.98 million, $38.83 million lower than the $201.81 million achieved in the preceding trading day.
At the Peer-to-Peer (P2P) segment, the local currency further appreciated against the American currency by 0.32 per cent or N2 to trade at N618/$1 compared with the N620/$1 it was traded a day earlier.
But at the interbank window of the market, the Naira depreciated against the British Pound Sterling by N1.96 to trade at N510.02/£1 versus the preceding session’s N508.06/£1 and slid by N1.04 against the Euro to close the day at N437.60/€1 compared with N436.56/€1 of the previous day.
Meanwhile, the recovery recorded by TerraClassicUSD (USTC) in the cryptocurrency market on Thursday appeared to be short-lived as it lost 11.5 per cent on Friday to trade at $0.0100.
It was the only digital coin of the 10 tokens tracked by this newspaper to shed weight yesterday as Solana (SOL) posted a 10.3 per cent growth to settle at $42.28.
Ethereum (ETH) went up by 7.4 per cent to sell at $1,236.08, Dogecoin (DOGE) appreciated by 6.2 per cent to trade at $0.0691, Binance Coin (BNB) jumped by 4.3 per cent after a deal with Cristiano Ronaldo to quote at $241.40, Bitcoin (BTC) recorded a 2.7 per cent rise to trade at $21,508.22, Cardano (ADA) jumped by 2.6 per cent to $0.5053, Litecoin (LTC) leapt by 0.6 per cent to $57.02, Ripple (XRP) recorded a 0.07 per cent rise to trade at $0.3718, while the US Dollar Tether (USDT) gained 0.01 per cent to sell for $0.9995.
By Adedapo Adesanya
The last trading session of the week on the NASD Over-the-Counter (OTC) Securities Exchange closed on a positive note on Friday by 0.42 per cent.
This was influenced by the gains recorded by Niger Delta Exploration and Production (NDEP) Plc and Central Securities Clearing System (CSCS) Plc.
NDEP grew during the day by N18 or 10 per cent to close at N198.00 per unit compared to the previous day’s N180.00 per unit, while CSCS Plc rose by 20 kobo or 1.37 per cent to close at N14.80 per unit as against the N14.60 per unit it was previously sold.
At the end of the day’s trading, the NASD Unlisted Securities Index (NSI) gained 3.24 points to settle at 768.27 points compared with the earlier day’s 765.03 points.
In the same trend, the bourse’s market capitalisation closed at N1.011 trillion as investors expanded the total value of securities on the platform by N4.27 billion. On Thursday, the market capitalisation stood at N1.007 billion.
At the market, the total volume of shares bought and sold by investors increased by 251.7 per cent to 323,519 units from 91,997 units, the total value of transactions appreciated by 53.1 per cent to N8.9 million from N5.8 million, while the total number of trades went down by 15.4 per cent to 11 deals from 13 deals.
AG Mortgage Bank Plc finished the trading week as the most traded stock by volume on a year-to-date basis with the sale of 2.3 billion units worth N1.2 billion, CSCS Plc also retained the second spot with the sale of 674.2 million units valued at N14.1 billion, while Food Concepts Plc was in third place for trading 146.0 million units valued at N126.7 million.
In the same vein, CSCS Plc maintained its position as the most active stock by value on a year-to-date basis with a turnover of 674.2 million units valued at N14.1 billion, VFD Group Plc was in second place with 10.9 million units worth N3.2 billion, while FrieslandCampina WAMCO Nigeria Plc retained the third place with the sale of 9.6 million units valued at N1.2 billion.
By Adedapo Adesanya
The oil market improved by about 3 per cent on Friday, supported by tighter supply, with the Brent crude futures growing by $3.07 or 2.8 per cent to $113.12 a barrel and the US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures expanding by $3.35 or 3.2 per cent to $107.62.
Despite the bullish news on Friday, the black gold notched its second weekly decline on concerns that rising interest rates could push the world economy into recession.
The already tight market was further impacted as crude production dropped 45 per cent in less than a decade, currently averaging 275,000 barrels per day as protests of indigenous nationalities of Ecuador demanding fuel subsidies saw them invade and vandalize at least a dozen of oil fields and risk pipeline supply to the country’s ports.
Indigenous leaders have presented the government of President Guillermo Lasso with a list of 10 demands, including a freeze on national gas prices, greater investments in education and healthcare, and more jobs.
In an unprecedented turn of events, the world’s most-watched oil data report on inventories from the US was not released this week due to a power problem.
The Energy Information Administration (EIA) hopes to shed more light on the reasons for the delay next Monday.
Meanwhile, the US Federal Reserve’s unconditional focus on taming inflation continues to squeeze speculators out of the Brent and WTI futures contracts.
The US Federal Reserve Chair, Mr Jerome Powell, said the central bank’s focus on curbing inflation was “unconditional”, adding to fears about more interest rate hikes.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine exacerbated tight supplies this year just as demand has been recovering from the COVID pandemic.
Crude has also gained support from the almost total shutdown of output in OPEC member Libya due to unrest.
On Thursday, the Libyan oil minister said the National Oil Corporation (NOC) chairman was withholding production data from him, raising doubts over figures issued last week.
The Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies, known as OPEC+, meet on June 30 and are expected to stick to a plan to only slightly accelerate hikes in oil production in July and August.
US energy firms added oil and natural gas rigs for a second week in a row in a record 23-month streak of increases, as high crude prices and prodding by the government prompted drillers to return to the wellpad.
