The Nation Newspaper

Tag: pays

  • NIDF pays investors N60.71 dividend

    Afrinvest Asset Management Limited, the fund managers of the Nigerian International Debt Fund (NIDF),  a listed collective investment scheme on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE), has started payment of interim dividend of N60.71 per note to investors. The N60.71 coupon per note is well above the initial estimated dividend payment of N36.00 per note.

    In a statement, the fund manager stated that based on the number of qualified notes on the register of the NIDF as at the closure date of July 29, 2014, a total of N44.17 million would be distributed to all note holders at N60.71 per note.

    “Dividends have become an important factor for investors to consider and, at Afrinvest, we are committed to providing value for our clients, helping them achieve their investment objectives”, said Ike Chioke, Managing Director of Afrinvest West Africa Limited, the parent company of the Fund Manager.

    The Nigeria International Debt Fund invests in the domestic and international debt instruments of the Federal Government of Nigeria as well as those of the 36 States.

    Chioke said the NIDF offers investors safety, capital preservation, steady returns, diversification and value, and has a consistent dividend history making it quite attractive for both individual and institutional investors such as Pension Fund Administrators (PFAs), insurance companies, asset managers and gratuity funds.

  • When patience pays

    When patience pays

    The Faculty of Pharmacy, Delta State University (DELSU), has held its maiden induction and oath-taking. Ninety-four graduates, among them those who finished two years ago, were inducted. PHILIP OKORODUDU (Electrical, Electronics and Computer Engineering) and ESE OKODUWA (300-Level Home Economics) report.

    No fewer than 94 graduates of Pharmacy of the Delta State University (DELSU) in Abraka were, last Thursday, inducted into the Pharmaceutical Council of Nigeria (PCN) by the council’s Registrar, Mr N.A.E Muhammed.

    The ceremony was held in the 1,000-capacity auditorium on Site III of the institution. It was attended by eminent personalities, including the Commissioner for Lands, Survey and Urban Development, Patrick Ferife, who was the guest speaker.

    The graduates were resplendent in their blue academic gowns. They beamed with smile as they moved into the auditorium with their family members.

    It was the maiden induction of the Faculty of Pharmacy, but the ceremony was held for two sets of graduates. The Dean, Prof. A.O. Onyekweli, appreciated the guests for honouring the invitation, noting that the journey to graduation was not easy for the inductees. He thanked the graduates for their patience, saying the university had justified the purpose for which the faculty was established.

    In his lecture entitled: Pharmacy practice: Past, present and the future, Ferife advised the graduands to always listen to their patients’ explanation, noting that it was the best method in drug administration. He also admonished them to visualise the attainment of their desire to fit into the nation’s chaotic system in order to thrive and be exceptional in their practice.

    Muhammed enjoined the inductees to key into the profession as it is full of opportunities that could serve as a perfect enhancement of their dreams.

    Highlight of the occasion was the administration of oath on the graduands by the registrar.

    In his remark, the Vice-Chancellor (VC), Prof E.A Arubayi, hailed Governor Emmanuel Udughan for his support during the “trying period” when the faculty was seeking accreditation from the National Universities Commission (NUC) and PCN.

    Some of the graduands expressed joy. Christian Mekwunye said: “I feel elated that my dream to become a pharmacist has now been actualised.”

    Another graduand, Oghenekomeno Edo, said: “I am fulfilled and filled with joy for being inducted as a pharmacist. It is time for me to bring all the theory into practice to contribute my own quota to the development of the profession in Nigeria.”

    The best graduating student, Inifome Oke-Oghene, thanked the management for its effort at making the day a reality for the graduating students and congratulated her colleagues for their patience.

     

  • Berger Paints pays N203m dividends

    Berger Paints pays N203m dividends

    Berger Paints Nigeria Plc has started utilizing the net proceeds of its recent rights issue as it has place an order for a fully automated paint manufacturing plant, which will make the company the first to own such plant in Africa. Berger Paints had raised N543 million through a rights issue.

    Addressing shareholders at the annual general meeting of the company in Lagos, chairman, Berger Paints Nigeria Plc, Mr. Clement Olowokande, said the company would soon become the first paint manufacturing company to automate its production facility in West Africa.

    He said the automated plant, which would be complemented by a network of colour world centres to be located in major Nigerian cities, would not only revolutionize production and distribution processes, it would have major positive on costs, product quality, turn –around time and profitability.

    According to him, in a bid to prepare the company for the future, which the automation represents, the board of directors of the company has also embarked on a major upgrade and re-engineering of the company’s organisation and human resource management infrastructure.

    He said efforts are on-going to boost the company’s managerial capacity and make the company more nimble and adaptable to take advantage of emerging opportunities in the economy.

    He added that the implementation of the local content policy in the oil and gas sector holds great prospect for the company, given the strategic alliances and partnership it has formed with some of the largest manufacturers of paints in the world.

    He noted that the company is also embarking on total overhaul of its sales, marketing and distribution systems and infrastructure with a view to regaining its leadership position in the paints industry in the near future.

    “With the steps already taken and others in the pipeline, the future of our company is indeed very bright. The strong interest shown in our stock in the capital market in the last couple of months would suggest that perceptive investors are already noting some of these positive developments and responding accordingly,” Olowokande said.

    Meanwhile, shareholders of the company approved distribution of N202.9 million as cash dividends for the 2013 business year, representing a dividend per share of 70 kobo. Audited report and accounts for the year ended December 31, 2013 showed that profit after tax increased by 30.9 per cent to N251 million as against N192 million recorded in 2012. Profit before tax rose to N356 million in 2013, showing an increase of 25 per cent compared with N284 million in 2012.Turnover rose to N2.7 billion in 2013 compared with a turnover N2.5 billion recorded in 2012.

    Managing Director, Berger Paints Nigeria Plc, Mr. Tor Nygard, said the report was indicative of continuing improvements in the company’s operations, characterised by huge investments in product innovation.

    He noted that in spite of the local infrastructure challenges affecting real sector performance, especially power, the company was able to record growth of 7.75 per cent and 30.9 per cent in revenues and profitability respectively.

    Meanwhile, Olowokande has retired from the board of directors of the company after 45 years stint with the company while a new Chairman, Dr. Oladimeji Alo, a non-executive director has been appointed to replace him.

    Olowokande, a Fellow of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) of United Kingdom and also a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Accountants of Nigeria (ICAN) joined the company as a young accountant in 1969 and rose through the ranks to become Managing Director in 1991 and Chairman of the board in 2001.

    The chairman along three other directors, having attained the age of 70 after the last meeting, retired from the board of the company after the 55th yearly general meeting yesterday.

    The board has also appointed Mr. Wole Abegunde to the board of the company. Abegunde who is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Stockbrokers of Nigeria and authorized dealer of the Nigerian stock Exchange is presently the managing director of Meristem Securities Limited.

  • NDIC pays N6.82b to depositors

    NDIC pays N6.82b to depositors

    The Nigerian Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC) paid N6.82 billion to 528,212 depositors of closed banks as at June 20, its Managing Director, Umaru Ibrahim, said yesterday.

    Speaking at the corporation’s special day at the on-going Lagos International Trade Fair, he said the figure represented an increase of N6.68 billion paid to 527,942 insured depositors as at December 31, 2011.

    Ibrahim, represented by NDIC Executive Director, Corporate Services, Mrs. Lola Abiola-Edewor, said N2.520 billion was paid to 75,520 depositors of 95 out of 103 closed Microfinance Banks (MfBs) as at June 30, 2013.

    He said N73.589 billion was paid as liquidation dividend to 250,209 depositors of Deposit Money Banks (DMBs).

    The management, he said was confident that its recent rebranding package would help the corporation construct fresh and positive perception among the numerous depositors and stakeholders across the country.

    According to him, by so doing, the Corporation would occupy a prime spot in the hearts and minds of the depositors and other stakeholders who would continue to trust its commitment to protect depositors funds.

    He said, the continuous participation of the NDIC in Lagos International Trade Fair since 2002 was informed by its commitment to reach out to stakeholders in the quest to enhance public awareness on the corporations mandate and activities.

    “In order for the new NDIC brand to continue to efficiently and effectively on its mandate and also be a beacon of hope and a bastion of trust and reliability to the average Nigerian depositors, the NDIC act would need to be fortified in view of developments in the International financial system in general, and the Nigerian financial service industry in particular.

    “I am pleased to inform you that the NDIC had proposed amendment to the current Act. The amendments are aimed at strengthening the corporation’s supervisory capabilities and addressing other challenges in the area of liquidation of failed financial institutions,” he said.

    Ibrahim added that the amendments are also meant to ensure compliance with the core principles for effective Deposit Insurance Systems.

    He said that the Corporation was established under NDIC Act 2006 to protect depositors’’ funds and provide a financial safety net for the banking industry.

    He however said that in the event of closure of a bank, depositors of deposit money banks are entitled to claim up to a maximum guaranteed sum of N500,000 each and N200,000 each for depositors of microfinance banks and primary mortgage banks.

     

  • Almakura pays Nasarawa Utd 50% Sign On Fees

    Almakura pays Nasarawa Utd 50% Sign On Fees

    Nasarawa State governor, Tanko Almakura at the approved the payment of 50% sign on fees for the players of the state’s darling team, Nasarawa United, in a renewed effort to boost their morale in the ongoing Nigerian League.

    Morale have been low in the team’s camp following non release of funds to offset their sign on fees leading to an embarrassing 3-0 loss to Heartland of Owerri recently. The players have been agitating for their sign on fees before the Friday approval even though the state government has been paying all their monthly salaries and match bonuses without default.

    Top management member of the club and a special assistant to the governor, Silas Agara disclosed that the governor has released funds to pay the players 50% of their sign on fees in order to make them concentrate on doing well in the league.

    “The state governor, Alh. Tanko Almakura on Friday gave approval for the release of funds to pay the players 50% of their sign on fees. Before that, we have not owed the players a dime in terms of salaries, allowances and match bonuses. After every game, the governor ensures that without delay their allowances are settled. Only their sign on fees have been pending.”

    He blamed the 3-0 painful loss to Heartland in Owerri on low morale. “The boys have been agitating for their sign on fees and I believe they lost with such margin to Heartland due to low morale.”

  • Capital Market: When bad behaviour pays

    Capital Market: When bad behaviour pays

    It is important to lend additional voice and question the rationale behind the federal government N22.6 billion bail-out of some capital market operators. It is tantamount to rewarding bad behaviour and excessive risk-taking at public expense. For the stock broking firms that will benefit from this largesse, if their investments have been profitable and they made a kill in the capital market, they would not have shared their profit with the public. The action of government is therefore tantamount to endorsing the privatization of profits and the socialization of losses if you have the lobby and the political connection to dump your losses on the Nigerian people.

    By setting this precedent, the government has further ossified the moral hazard problem in our financial system. If an investor taking an investment risk knows that he can appropriate his gains but can pass his losses to another party, he will take excessive unreasonable risk as he has nothing to lose. This moral hazard problem was at the heart of the misbehaviour of investment bankers in the recent global financial crisis, when they could make huge bonuses if their bets worked out but pass the loss to shareholders if it didn’t. This coupled with the implicit guarantee of their risk by the public especially if they were “too big to fail, essentially a public subsidy of their risk, further compounded their bad behaviour. They created a tower of complex financial instruments that had little bearing to their underlying assets, played roulette and casino at public expense, made initial huge gains which they pocketed until their financial derivative instruments fell like a pack of cards.

    Where these investment banking businesses shared a common capital base with retail banking as one organic financial institution, essentially leveraging public deposits in their banks to trade, they created assets that wiped off the bank’s capital and public retail deposits in their institutions. Where they were big banks, sometimes with a century of public retail deposits, the financial system was put at systemic risk of collapse and the state had had to intervene to bail them out largely to protect public deposits. This experience has fuelled calls for the full organic separation of investment and retail banking in the financial system. It is difficult to understand how this logic of bail-out applies to the stock brokers who will enjoy N23 billion government largesse. A public bail out of a financial institution is justified only if they pose a systemic risk to the financial system should they fail. A systemic risk is the risk that the entire financial system will fail and collapse and it is different from the risk of financial failure of an individual or group within the financial system.

    The first question to ask is whether the failure of the selected stock-broking firms being offered this government largesse can pull down the entire financial system or pose a systemic risk. Certainly not! These stock broking firms are not banks and their size relative to the whole financial ecosystem poses no fundamental systemic risk. What then is the rationale for the bail out?

    Two fundamental conditions must exist for the public bail out of financial institutions. They must either be either be “too big to fail – the TBTF test – or, must be “too interconnected to fail” – the TICTF test. The TCITF test measures whether a group of institutions represent critical connected dependencies with no existing market alternative in size and function such that their failure will pull down the financial system. The public bail-out of a financial institution or a group of financial institutions must pass these two tests to justify the test of a systemic risk. It is difficult to see how the group of stock-brokers who will enjoy these N23b public largesse could pass the “too big to fail” or the “too interconnected to fail” test. Their collective size does not pose significant systemic risk to the financial system. In the last three years, since these firms have had to deal with their margin loan challenges, the financial system has carried on. The capital market measured by the Nigeria Stock Exchange All Share Index has witnessed a year to date gain of more than 25 percent. This is because there are alternative market transaction agents whose collective size moderate any potential “too interconnected to fail” effect of the stock-broking firms being bailed-out by government. Whither then is the logic of government action?

    Capital market operators, specifically stock-broking firms’ operators are no banks. They are capital market transaction agents. They do not warehouse public assets or owe public liability like the banks that hold public deposits that could create a collapse of the financial system if a critical number of them fail. The stock asset that the public buy is not warehoused by the stock-broker but by the public themselves directly and the company from whom the stock was bought with a clearing system maintained by the independent Central Security Clearing System (CSCS). Stock sales are transactions between the company, the stock seller and the stock buyer with the stock-broker acting as intermediary, a broker and a transaction agent. It is the same relationship as that of a real estate agent who collects a fee brokering a deal between a house seller and a house buyer. The real estate agent, just like the stock-broker should ordinarily not warehouse housing-stock unless he decides to use his market knowledge for additional private gain and become an investor, acquiring his own housing stock. Would it be right to use state fund to bail out or forebear the loans of a group of real estate agents who took a bank loans to buy houses and kept, hoping to make a kill when the house stock appreciates, and unfortunately house prices fell?

    If the state does that, should the same logic and largesse not be extended to every citizen investor who bought housing stock when house prices fell? Therefore apart from rewarding bad behaviour, the action of government also raises public equity and fairness issues. For the ordinary retail investor who also lost money on the capital market like the stock-broking firms who took margin loans, where and what will be his own bail-out or loan forbearance? What is good for the goose must also be good for the gander.

    There have been attempts to justify the bailout of the stock-broking firms as a special intervention in the capital market as it has been done recently in aviation and agriculture. Special sector intervention funds in Nigeria have largely not delivered tangible results as they work against market logic. Have we seen yet the tangible and visible gains of the recent special intervention funds in agriculture and aviation? Such intervention funds have largely festered a regime of crony capitalism with all its attendant ills, where you get access to funds below market rate if you are connected to government and can even divert them to other more profitable sectors outside the intervention fund. The market punishment of bad investment decisions is critical to the effective functioning of markets. Special intervention funds where there are no proven market failures, where it cannot be proven that markets lack the mechanism to self-correct and cleanse itself in its organic cycle of bulls and bears that ensure that resources are efficiently allocated to those who will best utilize them, can only but lead to more imperfect market outcomes.

    Government has done very well by intervening and bailing out the banks whose failure truly posed a systemic risk to the financial system. It has however overreached itself in the N23 billion bail-out of selected stock broking firms. The logic and rationale of its decision fail public interest, fairness and social equity tests. If the concern of government is about the liquidity of the capital market, it cannot be addressed by rewarding excessive risk behaviour that could further jeopardize the future health of the financial system..

    • Akanmu, a company executive writes from Lagos

  • SWALLOWING THEIR VOMIT: NFF pays Keshi, others N40m arrears

    SWALLOWING THEIR VOMIT: NFF pays Keshi, others N40m arrears

    The leadership of the Nigeria Football Federation has directed its accounts department to pay all the four months outstanding salaries and allowances (N40 million) of the technical crew of the Super Eagles up to January 2013.

    According to findings at the Glasshouse secretariat of the NFF, the Chief Coach Stephen Keshi is expected to receive an arrears of N20 million, while his first assistant Daniel Amokachie will be paid N12 million. The two other assistants Ike Shorunmu and Sylvanus Okpala will be paid N6 million each.

    Confirming this to Sportinglife on Wednesday, Federation scribe, Musa Amadu who gave the directive said it was to ensure that the technical crew concentrates fully on the task ahead, which is winning the trophy.

    “ I have given directives that the salaries and allowance of the coaches be paid with immediate effect. We don’t want anything that will disturb them at the Nations Cup. We want them to concentrate fully on the task ahead. The accounts department is expected to credit their individual accounts before the end of business on Thursday (Today),” he stressed.

    This development confirms Sportinglife’s story which revealed that NFF was owing the technical crew four months salary. The football governing body widely denied the report which they described as mischievous and malicious.