Thread by @ugodre

Hello Everyone, welcome to @Nairametrics Corporate News roundup for the week ended May 5th 2018.

This thread is BTU by @BluechipTechNG

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1. TellCo Europe Nigeria announced last week that it was introducing its TellCoSol Off-Grid Solar Power System to the Nigerian Market.

The off-grid units come with a 50W Solar Panel, 1 Basic unit with built-in MP3 & FM Radio and Gel battery,
3 x 5 Watt TellCo Europe LED bulbs each with 5 meter cable and on/off
Switch,

1 x DC/AC Inverter, 2x Mobile phone charging cable, each with 10 phone adapters, and 1x Remote control unit.

They also have their target market locked and plan to sell 1 million units. According to the company, they want to start by targeting barbers in Nigeria.

2. Some good news for Lagosians. Operators of the Aje Oil Field, Yinka Folawiyo Petroleum Company Limited, said that their independent reserves auditor, AGR TRACS International Limited, revealed

that the gross proved reserves at Aje increased to 78.2 million barrels of oil equivalent, from 11.7 million boe in 2014.

They also reported that proved and probable reserves rose to 127.1 million boe from 23.4 million boe in 2014, and proved, probable and possible reserves stood at 215 million boe.

3. Sterling Bank announced a partnership with Kaduna State Government to bring affordable housing to residents of the state. Both parties will raise N5 billion for the mortgage scheme and contribute 50% each.

Interest rates will be at single digits, 9% according to their press release and for a period of 10 years.

According the bank, 50% of the funds has been earmarked for those wishing to purchase houses below N20 million value, 30% for houses valued up to N30 million and 20% to support home purchases of between N30 and N60 million.

Anyone seeking to benefit from this scheme will have to pay a security deposit of between 15 to 30% of the value of the houses they intend to purchase and would be expected to liquidate the loan within 10 years.

I ran the math, so if you go for the N20m loan and deposit 15% of it, your principal will be N17 million. Your monthly payment will be N215.3k per month in loan plus interest only.

Total interest at the end of the tenor of the loan will be around N8.8 million thus the house will cost you about N29m in total. Could be less if you factor in Capital Appreciation.

4. Axa Mansard has launched its own mobile app. According to the company, subscribers can carry out transactions, buy Insurance Packages, make real-time claims, book hospital appointments, locate hospitals, order prescription refills, etc.

The app is available for free download on the App Store for IOS users and Play Store for Android users respectively.

5. Ecobank has launched a new multi-featured digital payment solution known as, Ecobank Pay. According to the bank, “Ecobank Pay includes a rebrand of the Ecobank Scan+Pay QR offering, which allows customers to pay in-store via the Ecobank mobile app.

Merchants can now also speedily sign-up for their QR merchant code via the Masterpass QR for Merchant functionality on Facebook Messenger.”

Ecobank also said that it will be unifying it with all its digital payment offerings for services such as internet payments, eCommerce and paying bills.

Ecobank is investing heavily in its mobile applications and I wonder if this spending will pay off eventually. Strangely, Ecobank does not state its Fixed Assets Register.

6. Still on QR, UBA also announced the introduction of Master Pass ‘Quick Response’ (QR) Bot.

The solution enables the micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) in Nigeria and across Africa to receive digital payments from their customers through scanning, using their Facebook accounts.

Developed by MasterCard International in partnership with Facebook, Master Pass ‘Quick Response’ (QR), allows payment collection by SMEs through Facebook Messenger and delivers unified and instant self-service across a range of interconnected payment solutions.

And BTW UBA got a big boost during the week after their Facebook BOT Leo was featured on a by Mark Zuckerberg at the Facebook developer conference. Maybe Ada will be impressed by that

7. Big news. Last week, the Central Bank announced that it had signed the much awaited Currency Swap Deal with China. The deal is worth about N720 billion and will allow importers from China to pay in the Chinese local currency rather than in dollars.

But the bigger news for some of us investors is that Zenith Bank, StanbicIBTC, Stanchart and First Bank were selected as settlement banks. I understand that one of the reasons why they were selected was because they had offices in China.

In fact, while Stanchart and Stanbic have operating offices in China, First Bank and Zenith both have representative offices.

Thus, First Bank and Zenith will have to wait till they attain operating status, while Stanbic and StanChart will be allowed to act as settlement banks for now.

UBA and GT Bank are missing out on this and so is Access. UBA recently signed a $100m loan deal with the China Development Bank so you can rest assured that they are lurking in the corner to pounce when the opportunity arises.

For the settlement banks, what do they stand to gain? Fees and transaction float basically! Expect SMEs to deal mostly with First Bank, while larger importers will look at Zenith Bank.

Importers with international affiliations will probably gun for StanChart while Southern African businesses will look towards Stanbic.

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8. Justice was served last week after Justice Mojisola Dada of the Lagos State High Court, Ikeja, sentenced Nsa Ayi, a former relationship officer in Coronation Merchant Bank,

to seven years imprisonment for diverting clients’ N700 million meant for Federal Government bonds, treasury bills and fixed deposits.

Apparently, Ayi diverted funds earmarked to be invested on behalf of customers into several bank accounts and had planned to relocate with his Family until he was caught by the EFCC.

Lord knows how many folks like this have made money through such means and living large abroad.

9. Reports indicate that MTN has increased the number of digits on its recharge card from 16 to 17 digits. It was 12 digits until it was changed in 2016.

I also understand that all existing unused cards with the 16 digit code are still usable. I guess, this is just more work for scratch card users.

10. The Nigerian Communication Satellite, NIGCOMSAT Ltd and the Turkish Satellite Company, TURKSAT, announced that they had sealed an agreement to “serve the served and underserved areas in the delivery of satellite based services across Africa.”

Both parties want to jointly cooperate on shared satellite ground infrastructure in Africa and Europe, backup capacity arrangements, satellite communication training,

broadcast content sharing and satellite applications development with particular emphasis on e-government applications.

11. The BBC exposé on the Codeine drug abuse syndrome in Nigeria has got Emzor Pharmaceutical on the ropes all week. After announcing that they had dismissed their executive who was caught in the video, they also announced the suspension of the distribution of the cough syrup.

Surely, Emzor is not the only pharmaceutical company selling cough syrup considering how much demand the product has. There are other manufacturers, small and large and importers too.

Also caught up with Emzor was, Bioraj Pharmaceuticals, located in Ilorin. They have also announced an embargo on sales of Violin cough syrup with codeine.

One of Bioraj’s employees, a store man, was also featured in the video while illegally selling the drugs to users.

This BBC investigation should be an eye opener for a lot of companies in Nigeria. These are the sort of image risks that can collapse companies.

12. Dufil acquired May & Baker’s food division for N775 million. The acquisition, which happened late last month, gives Dufil ownership rights to the Mimee Noodles brand.

Late last year, Dangote Flour sold two production lines located in Ikorodu and Calabar to Dufil Prima Ltd ( which makes Indomie noodles). The deal is valued at N3.7 billion and also includes Dufil Prima purchasing stocks worth nearly N400 million.

Dufil, will also produce noodles under the Dangote brand for the next two years. Dufil is now clearly the market leader in this space and only has to contend with Honeywell and Flour Mills.

Honeywell is already struggling and is clearly not a major competition for Dufil. Anti trust anyone?

13. Nestle revealed that it has taken a N3.4 billion provision on its Water factory in Abaji, Abuja. The factory was commissioned by Vice President Professor Yemi Osinbajo in 2016 and was meant to complement the Agbara factory.

This came as a surprise to some of us considering how strategic that factory was to Nestle’s long term goals.

According to the company, In its 2018 first quarter interim results, the company revealed that “the expected business growth and gain of market share” for the factory has not been realised and “outlook for future expansion is below estimates.”

Based on this, it conducted a test on the viability of the factory and decided to provide for a whopping N3.4 billion impairment on it.

14. Still on Consumer news, Kelloggs, the owners of Tolaram Group Nigeria Limited confirmed, during the week, its plans to invest a total of about $420 million in addition to its joint-venture equity interests.

Kelloggs-Tolaram Nigeria Limited is a joint venture between the Kelloggs and Tolaram groups.

The joint venture was established in 2016 to develop snacks, breakfast foods, and noodles across the West African region. As part of the agreement, Kelloggs also acquired a 50% stake in Multipro, the largest distributor of food products in the sub-region.

It also has a right to acquire a stake in Tolaram Africa Foods (which holds a 49% stake in Dufil Prima foods). Just last December, the company commissioned its N6 billion cereal factory in the Lekki Free Trade Zone (FTZ).

15. Looks like the apparent competition awaiting DSTV next year is giving them a rethink on pay-as-you-watch.

According to the company’s Managing Director, John Ugbe, “pay-as-you-consume is something we may consider if it is technologically possible and the business model supports it.”

Well, the technology surely supports it so I guess competition may have to force them to tweak their business model a bit.

Make no mistakes about it, DSTV is used to competition, has deep pockets and knows how this game is played. In the end, necessity will determine whether they will cave in or not.

16. Alluvial Trade, Indian conglomerate, Tata, and heavy equipment giant, John Deere, have signed a partnership agreement to distribute tractors in Nigeria.

The company disclosed recently in a press release that Tata and John Deere will deploy the tractors to states in the Niger Delta as well as adjoining states.

These are the guys that will likely import that "10,000 trucks" Dangote talked about.

17. Guinness Nigeria Plc has announced the appointment of Baker Magunda as its new CEO. The former CEO, Peter Ndegwa will take a new role at Guinness’s parent company, Diageo Plc.

This is Guinness’s fourth CEO in 5 years. In 2015, it appointed Mr. John O’Keefe as CEO taking over from Seni Adetu, a Nigerian.

Within 6 months of taking the appointment, John was promoted to President, Diageo Africa, making room for Peter Ndegwa (Kenyan) to take over.

That's @Nairametrics Corporate News Thread for the week.

Thanks to @BluechipTechNG for the support.

Btw they are celebrating their 10 year anniversary and we wish them many more years of success in their endeavours.

We love success stories.

Someone said once you cross 5 years as a business then you survived the most difficult stage of survival. When you pass 10 years you survived the most challenging stage for growth. Congrats @BluechipTechNG

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Thanks once again and hope you enjoyed this week's version of the thread.

Until we meet again, do have a profitable week ahead.

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