Nigeria’s Inflation Rises to 12.20% in February

By Adedapo Adesanya The Nigerian Naira weakened further by 8.3 per cent or N67.28 on the American Dollar at the Nigeria Autonomous Foreign Exchange Market (NAFEM) on Tuesday, as investors intensified their demand for the greenback ahead of the festive season rush. Amid a squeeze in the supply of the foreign currency to the market, the value of the local currency closed at N881.88/$1 yesterday compared with the preceding session’s N814.60/$1. Though the supply of FX into the official market improved by 17.9 per cent or $18.00 million to $118.06 million from $100.06 million quoted on Monday, it was not

By Adedapo Adesanya  Oil prices rose by more than $1 a barrel on Wednesday as investors focused their attention on an upcoming OPEC+ output policy meeting and looked past a jump in crude stockpiles in the United States. Brent crude futures were up by $1.01 or 1.2 per cent to $82.69 per barrel, and the US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures gained $1.16 or 1.5 per cent to close at $77.57 a barrel. Prices were lifted by a media report that the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and allies such as Russia, known collectively as OPEC+, was considering

By Aduragbemi Omiyale A workshop designed to educate investors, especially those in the retail end of the curve, on how they can improve corporate governance has been organised by the Nigerian Exchange Regulation (NGX RegCo) Limited. The two-day event, which took place on Thursday, November 23, and Friday, November 24, 2023, was themed Rights and Responsibilities of Shareholders in Driving Corporate Governance. According to the NGX RegCo, the seminar was designed to promote a transparent and fair market, with participants agreeing that all hands must be on deck to sanitize the market and bring the boards and management of listed

By Dipo Olowookere The bears consolidated their control of the Nigerian Exchange (NGX) Limited on Wednesday by 1.75 per cent following heavy selling pressure by investors. This came a day after President Bola Tinubu inaugurated the Presidential Committee on Fiscal Policy and Tax Reforms headed by a tax guru, Mr Taiwo Oyedele, who resigned from PwC because of this job. The team was given to mandate to increase the country’s tax base and raise the tax-to-GDP ratio to 18 per cent within three years. At the close of business yesterday, the market capitalisation of the NGX depleted by N622 billion

By Dipo Olowookere A new report released by South Africa-based Nielsen Africa has revealed Nigeria’s Consumer Confidence Index (CCI) for the second quarter of 2018 recorded a very healthy increase of nine points to 122, while Ghana’s CCI for the same quarter dropped 12 points to 108. In an emailed statement to Business Post, Nielsen Africa noted that in terms of Nigeria’s performance, its Sub Saharan Africa chief, Mr Bryan Sun, submitted that, “The stability of forex rates and a steady Naira has led to stable retail prices of most manufactured goods and imported staples, resulting in a recovery in

By Dipo Olowookere An employee of Skye Bank Plc identified as Mr John Alikah has been arraigned for allegedly withdrawing the sum of N1.4 million from two customers’ accounts. The suspect was dragged to the Igbosere Magistrates’ Court in Lagos on Wednesday by the police prosecutor, Inspector Abbass Abayomi. Mr Abayomi informed the court that Mr Alikalih, who works as a customer service officer with Skye Bank, allegedly committed the act on Friday, January 19, 2018, at about 1pm at the Isheri Ojodu Branch of Skye Bank. The accused was slammed with a three-count charge bordering on fraud. He was

By Adedapo Adesanya The Naira depreciated against the United States Dollar at the Peer-2-Peer (P2P) segment of the foreign exchange (FX) market on Tuesday, May 9, byN3 to settle at N752/$1 compared with Monday’s value of N739/$1. Also, in the black market, the Nigerian currency lost N2 against the Dollar yesterday to settle at N739/$1 compared with the previous trading day’s exchange rate of N737/$1. However, in the Investors and Exporters (I&E) window of the forex market, the domestic currency appreciated against the greenback on Tuesday by 53 Kobo or 0.11 per cent to trade at N462.25/$1, in contrast to Monday’s

By Dipo Olowookere Transactions on the floor of the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) were dominated on Wednesday by negative sentiments. It was observed that despite the positive results released yesterday by GTBank and Stanbic IBTC in their 2017 financial year, the mood remained weak. Even the encouraging inflation data for February 2018 released yesterday by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) failed to excite investors. At the close of business on Wednesday, the equity market ended in the red zone, shedding 0.54 percent to bring the year-to-date gain down to 12.02 percent. Business Post reports that the All-Share Index (ASI)

By Adedapo Adesanya  Standard Chartered Bank has reached an agreement to sell its subsidiaries in sub-Saharan Africa to Access Bank. The acquisition puts into motion a plan announced last year to divest those businesses. According to a statement on Friday, Standard Chartered will sell its shareholding in its subsidiaries in Angola, Cameroon, Gambia and Sierra Leone to Access. It will also sell its consumer, private and business banking business in Tanzania to Access Bank, a subsidiary of Access Holding Plc. In April 2022, Standard Chartered said that it would exit seven countries in Africa and the Middle East markets as

By Adedapo Adesanya Nigerian oil and gas company, Seplat Petroleum, has reported a loss of $105.8 million in its unaudited first quarter results. This was 396 percent decline from profit before tax of $35.8 million published in Q1 2019. According to the interim results for Q1, the loss was mainly driven by a $145.5 million impairment loss during the period, compared with the same period of last year, where there was a gain of $14 million charged on its oil and gas assets. Also, the first three months of this year, the company’s gross profit fell by 59 percent to

By Dipo Olowookere The Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) has granted the request made by Prestige Assurance Plc to list its rights issue of 13,465,377,640 ordinary shares on the exchange’s trading platform. A regulatory document obtained by Business Post confirmed that the application filed by the company, through its stockbroker, Imperial Asset Managers Limited, concerning the listing of the rights issue, was approved by the exchange on February 6, 2020. Prestige Assurance is selling 13,465,377,640 ordinary shares of 50 kobo each at 50 kobo per share, amounting to N6.73 billion, to its shareholders on the basis of five new ordinary shares