The Nation Newspaper

Tag: raises

  • UBA Foundation raises essay prize by N2.25m

    The United Bank for Africa (UBA) Foundation has doubled the prize money for its annual essay competition to N4,500,000 million for the top three winners.

    Managing Director, UBA Foundation, Bola Atta, revealed the increment while announcing the call for entries for the 2018 edition of the competition at the bank’s headquarters in Marina, Lagos, on Monday.

    Ms Atta said the overall best winner would get N2million scholarship grant – up from the previous N1million which would be paid yearly until the student graduates from any university in Africa.

    The second placed would get N1,500,000 as against N750,000, while the third position would get N1 million – twice the N500,000 previous prize money.

    Senior Secondary School pupils across the country have until November 2, 2018 to submit their entries for the essay competition, titled: “What is the biggest environmental issue that your generation will face and how can it be avoided?”

    Ms Atta said the Foundation, which is the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) arm of the United Bank for Africa (UBA) Plc set up the competition to give Nigerian youths opportunity to get educated regardless of their backgrounds, increase their knowledge through reading and research, and improve their writing skills.

  • DMO raises N215b from FGN Bonds

    The Debt Management Office (DMO) has raised N215 billion from the Federal Government of Nigeria (FGN) first monthly auction for the year.

    A report from FBN Capital, an investment and research arm of FBN Holdings, said the funds came at relatively high rates. It said although the debt office is once again running its auction programme without an approved FGN budget in place, it is in a more comfortable place than 12 months ago.

    “The marginal rates last week were slightly higher than the previous month: 13.38 per cent and 13.49 per cent for the five and 10-year benchmarks for July 2021 and March 2027 offers, compared with 13.19 per cent and 13.21 per cent,” it added.

    “In January 2017, the DMO raised N215 billion from the first monthly auction of FGN bonds of the year. Last week’s equivalent auction raised its target of N110 billion,” it said.

    The FBN Capital report, titled “Decent start to the year for the DMO”, explained that since the offers, there had been positive feedback from the market. It said there were indications that the FGN may raise another $2.5 billion from the sale of Eurobonds this quarter, and that the DMO would have a conversation with JP Morgan about the return of a selection of its FGN bonds to the bank’s indices for government issues in local currencies in emerging markets.

    Naira securities were removed from the JP Morgan Index in 2015 because of foreign-currency shortages, which led to volatility in the market. JP Morgan is the largest bank in the United States, the world’s sixth largest bank by total assets, with total assets of $2.5 trillion, and $28 trillion in assets under custody and administration.

    The report said decline in yields on FGN paper in the past four months amounted to plus or minus 350basis points for the bonds, which it argued may not be reflected in the 2018 budget proposals, which have total debt service at N2.03 trillion, excluding the sinking fund. “We have estimated the average cost of FGN borrowing in naira last year at 15.5 per cent, based upon debt service for the first nine months.”

    In addition to the momentum in its favour, the DMO appears to have a lower funding target for this  year. It raised N1.25 trillion net from the domestic market last year whereas the FGN deficit in the 2018 proposals is said to be N2 trillion and the strategy is to shift the balance towards external borrowing.

    Also, the DMO’s new calendar for first quarter of the year stated that investors would be offered two new issues, February 2028s next month and March 2025s at the auction in March. Its calendars are released after consultations with the investor base.

    JP Morgan Chase & Co plans to expand its African presence into countries, including Ghana and Kenya, Chief Executive Jamie Dimon said. “You will see us open in some countries we are not in, in Africa you will be hearing about some of that stuff,” Dimon said at last year’s World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Switzerland.

     

  • Ecobank raises platinum card holders’ daily spend to $15,000

    Ecobank Nigeria premier customers with platinum credit cards can spend up to $15,000.00 daily when abroad, the bank has said.

    The lender said it has also increased the maximum daily limit of its naira debit cards abroad, depending on the type of card held by the customer.

    Customers with naira debit cards, can now pay up to $4,000 and $5,000 per day on online channels and Point of Sale (PoS) terminals respectively across the world. Also foreign currency debit card holders, can spend up to $5,000.00 daily from their domiciliary accounts held in the bank.

    These limits are however subject to the Central Bank of Nigeria’s (CBN’s) annual spending limits on naira and foreign currency denominated cards.

    Ecobank’s Consumer Distribution Head, Ayotunde Kuponiyi, said the change was a response to customer feedback, as the bank is determined to reach and provide the customers convenience at all times. “This is positive news for our customers, particularly for those travelling abroad for business and leisure and for our customers in Diaspora. It is very important that Customers of Ecobank access their accounts with relative ease wherever they are, within or outside Nigeria,” he stressed.

  • IMF: Rising foreign borrowing raises exchange rate risks

    Nigeria’s plan to increase its foreign borrowing to reduce debt-servicing costs could raise its exchange-rate risks,  the International Monetary Fund (IMF)has said.

    The country’s plans to issue $5.5 billion of dollar-denominated securities by the end of the year, most of which would go to refinancing existing domestic debt.

    The issuance will more than double Nigeria’s outstanding dollar bonds to about $9 billion and is in line with a strategy to shift the economy’s debt profile by doubling the portion of foreign debt to 40 per cent of the total.

    “The IMF understands the authorities’ needs to rebalance its portfolio of domestic to foreign debt,” Abebe Selassie, director of Washington-based lender’s African department, told Bloomberg. “Such a shift would however make the economy more vulnerable to exchange-rate depreciation.”

    The naira weakened against the dollar following the crash in the price and output of oil, the country’s biggest export, increasing inflationary pressures for a country that imports everything from fuel to food and curbing economic growth. While price growth slowed for eight consecutive months to just under 16 per cent in September, it’s been above the upper end of the central bank’s six percent to 9 percent target range for more than two years.

    Nigeria plans two issues, one of $2.5 billion and another of $3 billion, including a mix of Eurobonds and diaspora notes.

    With Nigeria’s Eurobonds yielding an average six per cent, almost nine percentage points less than pricing for naira bonds, the government expects to reduce its debt-service costs, which the IMF sees almost tripling to about 62 per cent of revenue this year.

    Nigeria is struggling to free up funds to stimulate its economy to grow after it contracted by 1.6 percent in 2016, the first such slump in 25 years.

    “We expect that it will help the government extend its maturity profile, decrease debt-servicing costs, and reduce private sector crowding out,” Selassie said.

    The Debt Management Office Director-General Patience Oniha said last month she doesn’t see any currency risks given the government’s growth plans that will generate more foreign exchange.

    Nigeria aims to increase output to 2.5 million barrels a day next year from 1.77 million barrels a day currently. It is also increasing investment in agriculture to reduce food imports and lessen pressure on its currency, Oniha said.

  • Fed Govt raises N6.69b via Monthly Savings Bond

    The Federal Government has generated a total of N6.69 billion through the monthly issuance of the Federal Government of Nigeria Savings Bond (FGNSB) since in March this year. The bond issuance, was in pursuit of its objective of financial inclusion by attracting retail investors into the bond market.

    The amount raised since inception grew to N6.69 billion following the conclusion of the FGNSB Offer for October 2017. Out of the N6.69 billion raised since inception of the FGNSB, N3.71 billion was for the 2-Year Bond while N2.98 billion was for the 3-Year Bond.

    The Debt Management Office (DMO) which issues the FGNSB on behalf of the Federal Government said the high level of subscription by investors since the debut offer in March, shows that the product appeals widely to investors. According to the DMO, 9,103 subscriptions have been received so far from investors across the county.

    Analysts praised the DMO for introducing the Savings Bond into the securities market for retail investors and taking the instrument to the grassroots. The DMO plans to sustain investor interest in the product through sensitization of the public about the gains of investing in the Bond which has a competitive fixed interest rate with its income exempted from taxes.

  • Dangote raises refinery’s capacity to 650,000bpd

    Dangote raises refinery’s capacity to 650,000bpd

    AFRICA’S richest man and President of Dangote Group Aliko Dangote has announced that he is increasing his refinery’s capacity to 650, 000 barrels per day.

    The move, according to petroleum industry analysts,  will see Nigeria listed as having the largest petroleum refinery in the world.

    Dangote said that though the initial plan was to have 450,000 bpd refining capacity, but that he has since gone back to the drawing board to have a bigger plant because he believes that Nigeria as a leading producer of crude oil should also be credited with local refining capacity.

    Describing the situation where Nigeria produces crude, but goes abroad to buy refined products as unacceptable, Dangote, who spoke through his Group Executive Director, Devakumar Edwin, said Dangote refinery was ready to reverse the trend just as it had successfully done in other sectors like sugar and cement.

    His clarification came as the company’s Executive Director in charge of Stakeholders Management and Corporate Corporation, Manure Ahmed,  told stakeholders in South Africa that the refinery would run full swing as from 2017.

    Edwin, who spoke while receiving on behalf of Dangote, a group of oil and gas stakeholders who paid him a visit in Lagos at the weekend, also said the petrochemicals, which is being developed alongside the refinery, also had its capacity increased from 750,000 to 3.6 million.

    “The entire petrochemical industry is history. Nobody has started with a 3.6 million tonnes capacity anywhere in the world. We are doing two million tonnes of polypropylene and 1.6 tonnes of polythene, which is approximately 3.6 million tones, which is a huge petrochemical complex.

    “The consumption of petrochemical products in Nigeria and within Saharan Africa is quite limited today. But in the future, there will be growth. if the cement industry has not developed like this today, if we were still living with a 3.4 million tonnes per annum capacity, today we would have imported about 16 million tonnes of cement and with that, you can imagine if we had imported this, it would have cost the country $2 billion of foreign exchange.

    “So that much of foreign exchange has been saved by the country and we can imagine how much of billions of dollars the country is spending in importation of products. That much of enormous foreign exchange has been conserved and the petrochemical products are exported, it will yield a huge amount of foreign exchange for the country even for us today, we are so happy and relieved that our external investment in cement has started to yield returns this year we will be able to bring back foreign exchange in terms of our earnings from these investments.”

    He also dismissed fears that change in government policy could affect the business saying “we have witnessed so many political upheavals and never had any negative impacts on our business as such because our business is not dependent on any government contracts or any linkage to the government. Fortunately, for the businesses we are in and the way we carry out risk analysis, we go through a rigorous analysis before we carry out any investment. One of the reasons why we carry out this very rigorous risk analysis is because most of the investments comes from president’s pocket and  because he makes massive investment and obviously, he will not want his investments to be wiped out because of one mistake.”

  • Oil rallies raises OPEC demand forecast

    Oil rose for a third straight session on Monday as OPEC forecast greater demand for crude this year.

    Data from last week showed that  the United States (U.S.) oil rig counted  at a three-year low.

    U.S. crude futures, or WTI, rose $1.41, or almost 3 per cent, to $53.05 after rising to $53.40 earlier.

    WTI’s front-month contract,in  March 2014  was at its narrowest discount in a week to the second month. April recorded strong gains in oil for prompt delivery reduced some of “contango” that made it profitable to store crude for future delivery.Both WTI and Brent have gained nearly 20 per cent since a January 29, 2015  rebound inspired by better confidence in the supply outlook for crude following a seven-month-long selloff that took prices down by more than 50 per cent.

    “The harder you fall, the stronger you often rebound, from a statistical point of view,” said Phil Flynn, analyst at the Price Futures Group in Chicago.

    “But I think there is still a lot of denial that the market has hit bottom, and you’ll continue seeing people standing in front of the rally for a selling opportunity.”

    While Monday’s sentiment in oil was predominantly bullish, some traders sounded caution over rising tensions surrounding Greek debt negotiations, and how that could affect the broader European macroeconomic picture and demand for energy.

    The Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), forecast demand for the cartel’s oil will average 29.21 million barrels per day (bpd) in 2015, up 430,000 bpd from its previous forecast.

    In its monthly report, the group also slashed its outlook for crude supply growth in non-OPEC countries, citing a slowdown in the U.S. shale boom and lower capital investment by energy firms.

    Meanwhile, data from U.S. oil services firm Baker Hughes on Friday showed that the number of rigs drilling for oil in the United States fell to 1,140 last week, the lowest since December 2011.

  • Customs raises anti-smuggling tempo in Imo

    The Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), Federal Operations Unit (FOU) Zone ‘C’ in Owerri, the Imo State capital, has raised its anti-smuggling tempo by deploying its officials to all its area of coverage.

    The Area Controller of the Command, David Dimka, findings revealed, has directed constant land patrols and fortified all check points to curb smuggling.

    Dimka ordered the officials to comb all the bush paths in their areas to get the smugglers of used cars, rice, vegetable oil, second hand clothing, bags, frozen chicken, shoes and used tyres, among others.

    The Intelligence officers deployed by the command, it was gathered, were instructed to also beam their searchlight on travellers who assist the smugglers.

    The officers, it was gathered, seized 363 items that were illegally imported into the country last year. The value of the items, its Public Relations Officer (PRO) Onuigbo Ifeoma said, was over N1.8 billion.

    The command, she said, also recovered some items from importers, who shortchanged the government. The value of the items, Onuigbo said, was over N71 million. The value of all seized items by the command last year, she said, was N1,877,605,093.

    Onuigbo confirmed that the command has also increased foot patrol along bush paths and raised its level of intelligence gathering for preventing smuggling.

    She said 104 arrests were made, with 134  cases pending in court in contrast to 31 arrests recorded in 2013 with 20 cases in court.

    According to her, the intensive and aggressive patrol embarked upon by the command would continue till the end of the year, in order to get the smugglers.

  • World Bank raises $91m bond

    World Bank raises $91m bond

    The World Bank Green Growth Bond which closed last week realised $91 million from the deal.

    The transaction closed with a total subscription of $91 million, making this the largest public offer subscription for a non-Euro denominated equity index-linked bond across Belgium and Luxembourg last year.

    The bond was the first to be linked to an equity index designed for retail investors in Belgium and Luxembourg. The subscription period lasted a total of six weeks, from November 17, 2014 to December 29, last year with a one day reopening on January 7 to satisfy investors’ demand.

    There was strong appetite from investors, with the minimum issuance target of $15 million reached in the first three days of launch.

    World Bank said 10 banks distributed the product, together representing a large proportion of the Belgian market, including BNP Paribas Fortis, Fintro, Puilaetco Dewaay, Belfius, ABN Amro, KBC, CBC, Bolero, Banque Degroof and Fortunéo Banque.

    The product was developed in partnership with BNP Paribas Corporate & Institutional Banking.

    Director and Head of Global Capital Markets at the World Bank, Doris Herrera-Pol, said: “This offering marks the first time equity index-linked World Bank Green Bonds are accessible to retail investors and we are thrilled that the bonds met with such success. The transaction highlights the World Bank’s ongoing appeal to investors across the board, offering an opportunity to support environmental solutions while maintaining a long-term performance potential.”

    Commenting on the development, Global Head of Structured Equity, BNP Paribas Corporate and Institutional Banking, Renaud Meary, said: “The appeal of this product in Belgium and Luxembourg points to continued trends in the responsible investing space. BNP Paribas is committed to driving progress in sustainable and responsible investment solutions, and was proud to partner with the World Bank to deliver this pioneering solution to retail investors.”

  • MTN raises full-year subscriber target as South Africa grows

    MTN raises full-year subscriber target as South Africa grows

    MTN Group Ltd. (MTN), Africa’s largest wireless operator, raised its full-year subscriber guidance as growth in its domestic South African market helped offset contraction in its largest market, Nigeria.

    The telco will add 17.5 million net subscribers this year, compared with previous guidance of 17.25 million, its said in a statement yesterday. The carrier’s customer base grew two per cent to 219 million in the three months through September.

    Its Chief Executive Officer Sifiso Dabengwa said: “Performance was impacted by continued aggressive competition and stringent regulatory requirements.  The South African operation delivered an improved performance in the prepaid segment supported by competitive offers while the Nigerian operation faced a challenging regulatory environment resulting in lower-than-expected growth.”

    MTN, which operates in more than 20 countries across the Middle East and Africa including Iran and Syria, is seeking acquisitions. It has overhauled senior management in its fastest-growing markets as it seeks to increase smartphone penetration and boost data revenue outside South Africa, where sales have been under pressure from competitors and regulators.