NMRC Triggers Marginal 0.01% Appreciation at NASD Exchange

By Bliss Okperan The exchange rate instability in the country is already giving small business owners sleepless nights and it threatens their investments. This concern was raised recently by the National Vice Chairman of the Nigerian Association of Small-Scale Industrialists, Mr Segun Kuti-George. He emphasised that business owners would have to increase their prices because of the unavoidable consequence of the current exchange rate crisis in Nigeria. According to him, if consumers are unable to meet up with the increase in the cost of goods and services, businesses would be forced to shut down their operations, which would, in turn,

By Adedapo Adesanya A foreign oil company, Equinor ASA, has chosen a little-known Nigerian company, Chappal Energy, as the preferred buyer of its stake in one of the country’s largest deep-water oil fields, Agbami. According to a report by Bloomberg on Monday, the Norwegian energy giant is trying to sell its 20.2 per cent interest in the Agbami field – joining other international producers such as Shell Plc, Exxon Mobil Corporation and Eni SpA in looking to offload assets in Africa’s biggest crude producer, Nigeria. In January, Equinor launched the sale of its stake in an offshore Nigerian oilfield, joining

By Adedapo Adesanya The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has reaffirmed its support for the removal of fuel subsidy and the exchange rate unification of the administration of President Bola Tinubu, insisting that the policies are good for Nigeria’s economy. A representative of the global lender, Mr Ari Aisen, while featuring on Channels TV on Tuesday, maintained that the two policies must remain for Nigeria to reach macroeconomic stability. “After the position that needs to be well managed to avoid potential reversal, policies of subsidizing fuel, and controlling exchange rate will lead to a much better outlook for the Nigerian economy,”

By Adedapo Adesanya The new leadership of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) signalled no confidence to traders and investors as the Naira was further dealt a heavy blow at the Investors and Exporters (I&E) and the Peer-to-Peer (P2P) arms of the foreign exchange (FX) market on Monday, September 25, though it maintained stability against the United States Dollar in the parallel market. In the official market, the Naira lost 3.41 per cent or N25.49 against the greenback to finish at N773.25/$1 compared with last Friday’s closing rate of N747.76/$1, as the value of forex transactions went down by 58.3

By Modupe Gbadeyanka The presidency is yet to react to a report at the weekend that Minister of Finance, Mrs Kemi Adeosun, forged the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) exemption certificate she is presently parading as authentic. On Saturday, Premium Times reported that the Minister allegedly forged her NYSC exemption certificate. The newspaper further alleged that the Senate, which screened Mrs Adeosun for the ministerial job in 2015, was aware of this, but decided to use it as tool to blackmail her into releasing money to the parliament. Since the report was published, Nigerians have been reacting to it, calling

By Dipo Olowookere Directors, managers and other high-ranking members of staff of Fidelity Bank Plc as well as their related persons have been asked to stop the trading of the company’s equities on the floor of the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) for now. These set of people have been prohibited by the financial institution to stop buying and selling of the stocks from Thursday, October 17, 2019 until the third quarter earnings of the bank are released to the NSE and the investing public. This is to prevent insider trading by these people because of the company’s vital information at

By Adedapo Adesanya  Shareholders of the African Development Bank (AfDB) have approved the raising of the bank’s capital by additional $115 billion in a bid to stimulate growth and development on the continent. The approval was done at the lender’s shareholders’ meeting held in the Ivorian capital, Abidjan, last Thursday. In a statement released after the meeting, it was disclosed that the capital increase was the largest in the history of the bank following its establishment in 1964. “With the approved increase, the capital of the bank would more than double from 93 billion dollars to 208 billion dollars. “This

By Adedapo Adesanya The Nigerian Startup Bill 2022, which seeks to create and develop an enabling environment for technology-enabled startups in the country, has been passed by the Senate. The piece of legislature was passed by the upper chamber of the National Assembly on Wednesday, July 20 following a report by the Senate Committee on ICT and Cybersecurity. Presenting the report, Mr Oseni Yakubu, the Chairman of the panel, said that the bill sought to establish the National Council for Digital Innovation and Entrepreneurship. According to Mr Yakubu, the council would create and develop an enabling environment for technology-enabled startups

By Dipo Olowookere The positive momentum on the floor of the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) continued on Thursday as the market closed 0.19 per cent higher. This was despite the low trading activity witnessed during the session as the number of deals, volume of traded stocks and value went down by 5.54 per cent, 54.67 per cent and 45.21 per cent respectively. A total of 173.7 million shares worth N2.1 billion were traded in 3,646 deals yesterday compared with the 383.3 million stocks worth N3.9 billion transacted in 3,860 deals the previous day. The news of the injection of N25

By Dipo Olowookere In a bid to promote local foods and strengthen the domestic market, Heritage Bank Plc, one of Nigeria’s most innovative banking services providers, has sponsored Season-3 of Bukas & Joints, hosted by Olisa Adibua, a respected media personality in the country. The launching of the screening of the Season-3 television food show in Lagos on Wednesday was a well-attended media event organised by Biola Alabi Media, the producers of the programme in collaboration with Heritage Bank. The featuring of the event will start screening on African Independent Television (AIT) on Sunday, February 5, 2017 from 7pm to

By Dipo Olowookere Players in the nation’s oil and gas industry have been told what could be done to survive the rough operating terrain they find themselves in. In recent times, prices of crude oil have been unstable on the global market, which is giving some of them somethings to worry about. Energy Lead and Senior Partner, Real Sector at Verraki, Mrs Abayomi Olarinmoye, while commenting on happenings in the sector, said stakeholders must begin to look at different areas to achieve exponential growth if they intend to stay long in business. The former Managing Director for Accenture’s Resources Operating

By Dipo Olowookere The Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) further closed negative on Wednesday as investors continue to patiently await those who will make the ministerial list of President Muhammadu Buhari. During his campaign for a second time in office, the President promised to take Nigerians to the “Next Level,” dumping his first term slogan of “Change.” On May 28, 2019, the tenure of Ministers appointed by Mr Buhari after six months of his swearing in ceremony on May 29, 2015, ended and since then, there have been speculations as to who could make the new cabinet to help the President