Good evening and Happy Saturday to those who had to postpone their wedding because of elections, the coast is clear now.
Stock Market
Stock market down
Source: African Exchange
We know you are probably asking yourself âWho are these guys?â, donât worry youâre not alone we also do not know them but we see Oando, Transcorp & FCMB, a few trading names of popular companies that made the top gainers and top losers list as at the end of the trading week.
Can you spot any other companyâs name youâre familiar with?
How did the stock market fair in general?
The market recorded negative performance â the listed equities market recorded -2.45% loss compared to last week while the NASD OTC also went down by -0.32%.
Politics
4 + 4 = ?
You guessed right, Itâs 8. While most of Nigeria has agreed it will have the same president for the next 4 years, the opposition party is still on the quest to reclaim itâs âstolenâ mandate.
What should we expect in this second term?
Bashir Ahmad, an aide to the president replies âLove in itâs purest formâ. A promise he gave to a man who jumped into the gutter and drank its contents in celebration of Buhariâs return. Yuck! If thatâs what it takes to experience love in itâs purest form then maybe we would all never experience it. đ˘
What should the president do in his second term?
Or should we be asking what shouldnât he do? A few lecturers already have an answer to this as they say he should not create more tertiary Institutions. Itâs simple, why create more when you canât manage and maintain the current ones?
For the Governorship elections, election results for 22 states have been declared, APC is leading by 13 states while PDP trails with 9 states. Elections in 6 states have been declared inconclusive and would be done again on March 23rd.
Source: Stears
Brexit
Brexit is almost here but…
March 29th is just 2 weeks away and it seems the UK is getting a cold feetabout ending itâs 45 years marriage with the EU. Theresa May is still trying to salvage her deal as many would like to see an extension.
What is Brexit?
Britain + exit = Brexit. The decision (once unthinkable) made by Britain on June 2016 to leave the European Union. Just like a typical divorce story, since then it’s been talks, disputes, finger-pointing and threats.
Why should I care?
The UK is the fifth biggest national economy in the world. Brexit happening could lead to some shifts in Markets. Loss of Jobs, change of trade deals leading to less importation and exports, foreign exchange fluctuations. In summary, Unstable markets = potential bad news for Nigeria’s economy.
Aviation
737
This three numbers should ring a bell to you if you use USSD but weâre talking about the recent Boeing 737 airplane crash which has caused quite a stir. After two of the Boeing 737 MAX 8 jets crashed within 6 months, at least 40 countries have suspended the operation of the fuel-efficient aircraft in the span of 2 days.
What about Nigeria?
We lost Notable Nigerian-born professor & writer, Pius Adesanmi in the most recent plane crash. đ
No Nigerian Airline uses the Boeing 737 yet so no worries.
Air peace had ordered 10 new Boeing 737 planes but would be reviewing itâs order.
Waste Management
Keep trash forâŚ.
Visionscape! Not what you were expecting right đ
Visionscape Sanitation Solutions Limited, a waste management company may have defaulted on a N4.5 billion coupon payment due on March 4th, 2019.
So it all started like this…
Visionscape borrowed 4.5 Billion Naira from Private investors, the Lagos state government guaranteed the loan, saying with its chest that should Visionscape fail to pay back it will repay the investors from itâs Internally Generated Revenue. Sweet deal right?
So what went wrong?
In October 2018, after Lagos state government deviated from the âMasterplanâ, the Visionscape deal with Lagos state government was scrapped replacing Visionscape which was solely in charge of waste management for Lagos state with Waste Collection Operators (WCOs). No more business means no more money.
So what does this mean?
Investors have to scramble to get their money back, Visionscape remains calm and positive that this issue would be resolved. After all, Itâs not even up to 30 billion so whatâs the fuss?
E-commerce
Unicorn Status LoadingâŚ
We just might be on our way to having a new African unicorn as Jumia, a pan-African e-commerce platform, filed for an estimated $100million IPO that would see it trade on the New York Stock Exchange (JMIA).
Wait but isnât a unicorn a company with a $1Billion Valuation not $100million Valuation?
Yes, youâre correct, We hear Jumaiâs IPO could fly at 5 times or more the current target.
Auto
One Car for every 6 persons in Nigeria
No, Itâs not a campaign promise neither is a promo. The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) from itâs latest figures released show that there are 11.8m licensed cars are on Nigerian roads.
NBS also said:
- Lagos and FCT produced the highest number of driversâ licenses in Q4 2018
- Zamfara and Kebbi States produced the least numbers of national driversâ license in Q4 2018.
- Road accident Victims up by 19% & Most vehicles involved in road accident were Cars
Still thinking of buying a car? Of course, we go buy Benz!
Telecoms
Not here to Play Games
Itâs MTN vs the Attorney General of Nigeria as MTN sues the Attorney General Federation for passing a bill of $2 Billion for tax arrears.Something just doesnât seem to add up here đ¤
In the words of MTNâs CEO, âNow, of course, whatâs odd about the Nigeria situation is itâs not the Commissioner for Inland Revenue that we have the dispute with. Itâs the attorney-general, who is really not mandated to collect tax…Iâm just absolutely adamant that weâre a responsible company, we have paid the taxes we had to pay, and the tax authorities themselves arenât saying that we owe them anything. So I think weâve just got to stare this one down.âMTN is really set to go everywhere you go all the way on this one.
What else happened?
- What happens when Cristiano Ronaldo scores a Hattrick? Juventus qualify for the quarter-final of European Champions league and Juventusâ stock climb as high as 30% before dropping to a 17% gain on for the day. 3 goals = 30% increase, are we the only ones seeing a correlation here? đ
- Access Bank raised $165M from a European Investment Bank to fund itâs expansion plans.
- The internet is 30 years this week and as part of the celebration, Tim-Berners Lee creator of the world wide web was in Lagos. We just want to know if he got to eat Jollof Rice. đ
- Lafarge Africa, a building material company & major competitor to Dangote cement raised N89.212 Billion from a rights issue to patch up its recent loss concerns.
And that’s all for this week.