Author: Afolabi Oluwaseun

Billionaire Richard Branson’s space-tourism venture, Virgin Galactic, plans to go public by the end of this year. This is part of a deal with a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) created by venture-capital firms Social Capital and Hedosophia, the companies said on Tuesday. The SPAC, Social Capital Hedosophia Holdings Corp, will take a 49 percent stake in Virgin Galactic, valuing the deal at pro forma enterprise value of $1.5 billion. Branson’s company is racing against Blue Origin, the space business of Amazon.com Inc founder Jeff Bezos, to bring tourists into space. After Branson founded the company in 2004, his…

As part of efforts to provide financial and business skills to female entrepreneurs, Access Bank Plc has announced the launch of its Womenpreneur Pitch-A-Ton 2019, Womenpreneur Pitch-A-Ton is a capacity-building initiative, which will provide financial grants as well as a mini-MBA in conjunction with the International Finance Corporation for fifty winners. The initiative is targeted at women above the age of 18 years who have been in business for at least one year. Speaking about the initiative, Ayona Aguele-Trimnell, coordinator, W Initiative, Access Bank, stated that the Pitch-A-Ton is an expansion of the Womenpreneur Business Workshop, under the Bank’s women…

Mauricio Alarcon, the managing director and chief executive officer of Nestle Nigeria Plc., on Tuesday assured shareholders that the company would continue to churn out high dividends as the management has prioritised sustainable growth and profitability in its operations. He gave the assurance at the company’s 2019 and the 50th annual general meeting (AGM) held at the Muson Centre in Lagos to consider the 2018 financial year performance presented before the shareholders. The meeting saw shareholders approving the payment of N38.50 kobo as dividend per ordinary share, for the financial year ended December 31, 2018. The CEO thanked the shareholders for their support and stated that the company…

The Bond market turned firmly bullish in Friday’s session as market players viewed positively the news of the re-appointment of the CBN governor for another five-year term. First appointed in 2014 by President Goodluck Jonathan, Emefiele got a historic second term when President Muhammadu Buhari forwarded his name to the Senate for confirmation and would be the first governor of the apex bank to be reappointed in 20 years. Expectations for a further decline in OMO stop rates also supported a further decline in yields, which fell by 9 basis points. The market also witnessed the most interest on the…

Shareholders of Unilever Nigeria Plc on Thursday hailed the board and management of the company for the impressive performance recorded in 2018, as well as the  dividend payout of N1.50 per share. The shareholders gave the commendation at the 94th annual general meeting in Lagos. Unilever posted profit after tax (PAT) of N9.1 billion for the 2018 financial year, which increased by 29 percent. Speaking at the meeting, a shareholder representative, Boniface Okezie, said, “I want to especially commend the management of Unilever for a job well done, we as shareholders are proud of our company”. “It should also be…

Amazon Web Services, a unit of Amazon.com Inc, said it will help astronomers in Chile crunch huge troves of data using its cloud computing services, a symbolically important step for the retail-to-entertainment giant as it looks to expand in Latin America. Amazon will store data and night-sky images gleaned from telescopes in Chile’s nearly cloudless Atacama desert, then offer researchers the tools to access them anywhere, said Jeffrey Kratz, General Manager for Public Sector Amazon Web Services (AWS) in Latin American, Caribbean and Canada. “Chile has over 70 percent of telescopes researching … the night sky, yet 83 percent of…

The Nigerian banking industry continues to find it extremely difficult to mobilise deposits from institutional investors such as pension fund administrators (PFA), insurance companies, and individuals. Indeed,  deposit money banks (DMBs) cannot resist the charms of treasury bills yield, thus causing a fundamental breakdown in financing chain in the country. Bank lending is statistically and economically significant to economic growth and studies have recommended that the federal government of Nigeria, through the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) should strengthen the banking sector to ensure improved credit flow to the activity sectors because of its strategic importance in creating and generating…

Amidst election and other uncertainties which bewilder investors away from the Nigerian investment space, investment experts have suggested that a way to profit could be to invest in short-term instruments. The weak performance of the equities market in 2018 incited an influx of investors into the fixed income market. Emerging market contagion, pre-election jitters, weaker than expected performance of macroeconomic variables and continuous rate hikes in the US had significant impacts on the market. The CBN, therefore, felt the need to keep rates as attractive as possible to keep foreign inflows coming and keep domestic participation steady. The average treasury…

The Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE), has lifted the suspension of trading in the shares of. C & I Leasing Plc The NSE, in a statement referred to its market bulletin dated 13 December 2018, which notified the public of the full suspension of the Company shares to enable the Registrars to update the register of members, sequel to the share capital reconstruction exercise embarked upon by the Company, and upon completion, the Bourse has lifted the suspension. The statement said, “C & I Leasing has notified The Exchange that the reconstruction exercise has been completed and the shareholders’ register updated. Consequently, the suspension placed…

The board of directors of UAC of Nigeria PLC has announced the appointment of Omolara Elemide as acting group CEO following the retirement of Abdul Akhor Bello. The conglomerate announced that Elemide who is currently the executive director, corporate services would assume office on the 1stof January 2019, as the search for a substantive group CEO had already begun. The conglomerate  thanked  Bello for his years of devoted service from 1989, when he joined the company to date, wishing him the very best in his future endeavours. UACs financial results for the nine months ended September 30, 2018 showed the company’s…