CAPITAL MARKET
Shareholders Commend NASCON’s Impressive Performance Amid Challenges
Shareholders of NASCON Allied Industries Plc, a subsidiary of Dangote Industries Limited (DIL) have commended the food seasoning company over its impressive performance in the year ended December 31, 2021, in spite of the harsh economic operating environment just as the company emerged the best haulage company of the year. Speaking during the NASCON’s Annual General Meeting (AGM) held at the weekend in Lagos, a representative of the shareholders, Mrs. Bisi Bakare said the performance reflects the ability of the management of NASCON to steer the company through difficult times especially in the face of lack of power, fluctuating exchange regime and dwindling purchasing power of consumers. This Day
SEC introduces measures to tackle fraud, unclaimed dividends
The Securities and Exchange Commission is planning to provide capital market participants with unique identifiers in order to reduce fraud and the quantum of unclaimed dividends, a statement by the commission on Sunday said. The Director-General, SEC, Mr. Lamido Yuguda, stated this during a meeting with the Management of Nigeria Data Protection Bureau in Abuja weekend, according to the statement. Yuguda said the identity management project already ongoing in the capital market was meant to ensure that every participant within the capital market had a unique identifier that would be given to them so that all capital market transactions would be secured and done on a Straight Through Processing basis, leaving very little human intervention in the processing of data. Punch
BANKING
Wema Bank Emerges Most Profitable by PAT Growth in Q1 2022
Wema Bank Plc has endeared itself to investors and analysts in the Nigerian financial sector with its breathtaking efficiency, excellent customer service, impressive result, and innovativeness in the Nigerian banking sector, earning it the Top 5 bank in Nigeria in the first quarter of 2022. The banking industry generally recorded impressive growth in the first quarter of the year, recording a 23.24% year-on-year increase in real GDP, evidenced by the performance of the twelve commercial banks listed on the Nigerian Exchange (NGX). Wema Bank proved its mettle in the key metrics of total assets growth, customer deposit growth, profit after tax growth, loan book growth, return on average equity and cost to income ratio. This Day
ECONOMY
Foreign Reserves Down $2.03bn as Crude Oil Price Appreciates by 67.02% in Five Months
Despite the 67.02 per cent appreciation in global oil price, Nigeria’s foreign reserves depreciated by $2.03 billion in five months of 2022 on the backdrop of Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) sustained interventions. According to numbers released by the CBN, Nigeria’s foreign reserves dropped to $38.48 billion as at May 31, 2022 compared to $40.52 billion it commenced 2022 amid steady increase in global oil prices. At $38.48 billion as of May 2022, the foreign reserves dropped lowest since October 08, 2021 when it was hovering around $38.39 billion. The monthly breakdown revealed that the foreign exchange buffer dropped by 943.07million in May 2022, the highest decline in a month, followed by $478.95 million decline in January 2022. For the month of February and March, it also depreciated by $121.45 million and $317.8 million, respectively. However, in April, the foreign reserves added $41.5 million to close at $39.58 billion from $39.54 billion it opened in April 2022. This Day
Subsidy hits 45% of fuel import bill in Q1 – NBS report
The National Bureau of Statistics has disclosed that Nigeria spent N1.51tn on the imports of premium motor spirit, also known as petrol, in the first quarter of 2022. This was 25.54 per cent of the total imports for this quarter, and an increase of 17.05 per cent when compared to the N1.29tn spent on importing fuel in Q1 2021. The PMS import, as usual, tops the list of imported products for this quarter. This was disclosed in the Foreign Trade in Goods Statistics report of the NBS. Figures from the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited showed that the oil firm spent N210.38bn, N219.78bn, and N245.77bn as subsidy on petrol in January, February, and March 2022 respectively. This means that a total of N675.93bn was spent on fuel subsidy in Q1 2022. Punch
FG suspends $950m Eurobond borrowing over pricing, others
The Federal Government has shelved plans to raise about $950m selling overseas bonds, owing to unfavourable market conditions during the time frame approved for the fundraising, The Minister of Finance, Zainab Ahmed, has said. Ahmed had said in April that the government planned to sell as early as May its second external debt this year to help plug fiscal deficits. The planned $950m bond sale would account for the balance of $6.1bn overseas borrowing planned for 2021, after it raised the second tranche of $1.25bn in March. Punch
CBN RT200: Exports Rise by 137.9%, Capital Imports Slow to $1.5bn in Q1, 2022
The RT200 policy recently launched by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to incentivise export earnings has started to yield dividends as Nigeria’s export increased by 137.88 per cent in the first three months of 2022 to N7.1 trillion compared with N2.98 trillion recorded in the first quarter of 2021. Also, capital inflow into the Nigeria declined by 28.09 per cent to $1.57 billion compared to N5.76 trillion recorded in the last quarter of 2021. According to trade statistics released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), Nigeria’s total imports at the end of the first quarter of 2022 stood at N5.9 trillion compared to N5.94 trillion recorded in the last quarter of 2021. There was however a 21.04 per cent rise in imports when compared to N4.87 trillion that was recorded in the first quarter of 2021. This Day
BDCs can restore stability to FX market, Gwadabe insists
Amid the protracted currency market crisis, the President of the Association of Bureaux de Change Operators of Nigeria (ABCON), Dr. Aminu Gwadabe, says the bureau de change (BDC) operators could help to restore stability if re-integrated into the value chain. His position comes close to a year after the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) discontinued the sale of foreign exchange (FX) to BDCs and handed over the retail market to commercial banks. Gwadabe had previously called for mainstreaming of BDCs into the FX formal market while giving them a role in the remittance business as a way of deepening the market. He also advocated the creation of a BDC autonomous window with well-formalised operating rules. The crisis in the currency market worsened in the past two weeks with the dollar exchanging for over N600 at the parallel market. The dollarisation of the ongoing party primaries has heightened illiquidity. Guardian