Mining Lease Crisis: FG Faults BUA Cement’s Publication

By Adedapo Adesanya The NASD Over-the-Counter (OTC) Securities Exchange recorded a further rise of 0.55 per cent, extending its stay in the green territory to a fourth straight session on Thursday, November 7. This increased the NASD Unlisted Security Index (NSI) by 4.81 points to wrap the session at 872.54 points compared with 867.73 points in the previous session, as the market capitalisation of the OTC exchange jumped by N6.52 billion to settle at N1.182 trillion, in contrast to the preceding trading day’s N1.176 trillion. The unlisted securities market ended the trading session with two price gainers, 11 Plc and

By Adedapo Adesanya  The Nigerian Naira weakened by 17.9 per cent or N144.49 against the American Dollar in the Nigerian Autonomous Foreign Exchange Market (NAFEM) on Wednesday, December 6 as confidence waned in the Central Bank of Nigeria’s (CBN) ability to boost the market with enough foreign exchange (FX). Yesterday, the exchange rate of the Naira to the Dollar closed at N951.22/$1 in the official market compared with the preceding session’s rate of N806.73/$1. This happened as the forex turnover slightly went down by 4.9 per cent or $7.05 million to $135.58 million from the $142.63 million reported in the

By Dipo Olowookere The Nigerian Exchange (NGX) Limited depreciated by 0.49 per cent on Thursday, driven by selling pressure on banking equities, especially those in the tier-1 category. The likes of GTCO, FBN Holdings, Access Holdings witnessed sell-offs during the trading session, contributing to the weak investor sentiment observed at the Nigerian stock market. According to data obtained by Business Post, the NGX ended with 29 price losers and 24 price gainers, indicating a negative market breadth index. FBN Holdings ended as the heaviest price decliner after it shed 9.86 per cent to settle at N26.50, Secure Electronic Technology fell

By Adedapo Adesanya  The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has disclosed that the total value of the country’s merchandise trade experienced an increase of 1 per cent to $7.8 billion in August 2023 from the $7.72 billion that was quoted in July. This was disclosed by the apex bank in its latest monthly economic publication, where it disclosed that despite the rise month-on-month, Nigeria’s merchandise trade value in the period was almost 20 per cent lower compared to the value in August 2022 due to a significant decrease in import trade value. The total merchandise trade comprised an export trade

EcobankPay, the lifestyle digital payment and collections service of Ecobank Nigeria, has entered into a partnership with TerraKulture, Nigeria’s foremost stage play and cultural show promoters with Ms Bolanle-Austen Peters as lead. Through this partnership, Ecobank intends to support the promotion of African arts and culture starting from April 2019. For each festive season, there will be a theatrical production – April coinciding with the Easter celebrations; October season to correspond with the nation’s independence anniversary and December season end of year festivities. Commenting on the partnership, Managing Director of Ecobank Nigeria, Mr Patrick Akinwuntan, said it is one of

By Dipo Olowookere A globally operating intralogistics specialist headquartered in Germany, Linde Material Handling, has selected a Nigerian product-as-a-service provider, Bisedge Limited, as its local partner. With this development, Bisedge will be responsible for the import and maintenance of all Linde Material Handling equipment in Nigeria. This has also given the local company the authorisation to sell the forklift trucks produced by the German company in Nigeria, helping the European firm to expand its operations to the largest market in Africa. Already today, the Linde forklift brand is very well established in Nigerian consumer goods and industrial companies with a

By Adedapo Adesanya Google has reiterated its support for the African tech start-up ecosystem with empowerment capacity and developer scholarships as it opened up applications for its 6th Class of the Google for Startups Accelerator programme recently. The programme is accompanied by the launch of new developer scholarships in partnership with Pluralsight and Andela. At a virtual event to introduce the initiative, Google hosted key industry players, policy leads, start-up executives and investors in a bid to help drive the growth of Africa’s tech ecosystem. The launch provided a platform for them to review opportunities unfolding throughout the internet economy,

By United Capital Research Over 2018, fiscal and monetary authorities have made efforts (ranging from a shift to the international debt market to the persuasion of DMBs via moral suasion to lend to the real sector players) aimed at boosting private sector credit to spur economic growth. The impact of this was evident in Q3-18 as total credit to the private sector rose by 1.62% q/q to N15.6tn, having declined in the prior three quarters. Recently, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) published its selected banking sector data for Q3-18, which showed that the industry was exposed to high credit

By Dipo Olowookere The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Ghana Mission Director, Mr Andrew Karas, travelled to northern Ghana from September 14-18, 2016, to visit projects that work to advance USAID’s goals to improve agricultural governance, increase educational outcomes, and strengthen access to health services. While in the north, Mr Karas met with the Northern Regional Minister and the Upper East Regional Peace Council. Additionally, he met with the Savannah Accelerated Development Authority (SADA) to discuss collaboration efforts to improve development outcomes in the SADA zone. During his visit, the USAID, along with the Ghanaian government and a

By Adedapo Adesanya Supply disruptions from Libya and Norway pushed the prices of crude oil higher by about 2 per cent on Friday, with the Brent rising by $2.71 or 2.5 per cent to $111.74 a barrel and the United States West Texas Intermediate growing by $2.81 or 2.7 per cent to $108.57 a barrel. Libya’s National Oil Corporation (NOC) declared force majeure on crude exports from its oil terminals amid continued blockades of production and ports, which have severely crippled the country’s exports. The force majeure comes after weeks of protests and closures amid the new rift in Libya’s

By Adedapo Adesanya The Naira appreciated against the US Dollar in the Investors and Exporters (I&E) arm of the foreign exchange (FX) market on Tuesday, October 10 as liquidity remains frail in the near term, with the forex reform momentum slowing considerably. In the official market, the domestic currency gained N7.71 or 1.00 per cent against the greenback to settle at N765.83/$1 compared with the previous day’s exchange rate of N773.54/$1. The appreciation came despite a shrink in the supply of FX into the spot market by 37.6 per cent or $36.28 million to $60.30 million from the $96.58 million

By Aduragbemi Omiyale A stockbroker, Mr Ahmad Abdullahi, who used to be with a brokerage company in Kaduna State, Atlas Portfolio Limited, is in court explaining what he did with investors’ funds worth N26.9 million he was meant to use to purchase shares for them. He was dragged before Justice M.T.M Tukur of the Kaduna State High Court a few days ago by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) on charges bordering on criminal breach of trust, a statement from the agency said. The accused person was said to have committed the alleged offence when he was with the