I am of the opinion that an economy cannot function without the proper enabler’s, basic infrastructures (light, logistics, security, and education), right policy, proper planning and implementation. If all we’re going to do is inject funds into the stock market, embrace market makers who can buy and sell stocks every time supply overshadows demand or vice versa, or full government participation in the market (buying toxic asset) without digging down into the root cause analysis why all these companies are going through crisis… then we have another thing coming.

Is feds injection of funds going to solve our problem? Or is the adoption of market makers/stabilizer going to restore confidence in the market? I think not. What it will do is whip up sentiments for people to buy on the short run and then dump as fast as possible to recover their funds minimal gain therefore crashing the market again. A lot of people who have got their fingers burnt investing on NSE might / will never return despite any high returns attributed to it in the nearest future. I’m pretty sure a lot of people are waiting for an opportunity to divest all their investment totally from NSE and to never return ever again because of the high risk involved that they never thought possible. Then after the feds has reached their limit on funds utilization, and we have a lot of dumping that market makers can no longer tolerate, then we’re back right where we started from.

Many companies listed on NSE are going through crisis right now because they cannot compete with higher energy cost, logistics cost, security cost and higher cost of manpower. All these basic principles make it economically viable for old companies to thrive and for new companies to come into the market. A lot of investors are dumping their stocks because they believe that Nigerian economic environment is not favorable anymore, therefore it is better to divest and move to a viable environment. It is therefore absolutely imperative for us to modify our market environmental conditions at which all these companies operate. We need to restore sanity in the market place by implementing and enforcing strict rules. We need a stimulus package that will focus on improving efficient market rather than monopolistic atmosphere. We need stimulus package that will address the issue of rising energy cost, health care cost, logistics, and security. This need to be done urgently, in order to resuscitate our failing NSE and our failing country called Nigeria.

Will injection of capitals, use of market makers, or government purchase of toxic asset from financial institution revive our stock market?
Do we need the these kind of intervention?
What other stimulus package do we need, and how will it affect and shape our economy going forward?

Please, air your opinion.

Injection of capital into the NSE how?
I don't see any reason why govt should pump taxpayers money
into companies that are declaring over 100% profit, what's the point of giving
companies more money when they are declaring huge profits
and no company (banks) announced they are having toxic assets in nigeria big
enough to de-stabilise them

if anything I think the government should inject funds into proper manufacturing companies with capacity
to absorb at least 1000 new graduates or unemployed people if they have a clear business plan.

There's no point throwing monies at banks that they are deliberately manipulative.
remember less than 10% of Nigerians invest in the stock market so using their money
to help out banks that refuse them credit will be unjust; to them the money can be used
to provide basics-water, healthcare, security etc

Bail out of banks unnecessary – CBN
By Ayo Olesin, Yemi Kolapo and Udeme Ekwere
Published: Wednesday, 4 Feb 2009

The Central Bank of Nigeria has dismissed as unwarranted, the call for a government bail-out of sick banks.

It said on Tuesday that anyone accusing the banks of being responsible for the crisis in the capital market was only looking for a scapegoat.

The apex bank was reacting to the allegation by the Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday that some banks and firms contributed to the capital market crisis.

The Director-General, SEC, Mallam Musa Al-Faki, had said that the time was ripe for the Federal Government to take controlling interest in some “sick” banks and firms quoted on the Nigerian Stock Exchange.

“A lot of the brokers are stuck with loans and the banks are stuck with liquidity problems,” Al-Faki said, adding that certain chief executives who had become richer than their banks, should be questioned.

But the Deputy Director, Corporate Affairs of the CBN, Mr. Festus Odoko, told one of our correspondents on the telephone that banks should not be blamed for lending to stockbrokers.

“Who is in trouble now? Is it the banks or the brokers? The man who has defaulted should pay. The banks should not be criticised for lending,” he argued.

Odoko, who recalled that the capital market crisis had once been blamed on an alleged CBN directive that banks should stop margin lending, said defaulters of bank loans (stockbrokers) and their supervisors should check themselves.

“The CBN stopped the banks from lending. Blaming the same crisis on banks’ lending, to me, is illogical. I don’t understand the logic,” he said.

Odoko advised that the country, at this point in time, should be looking for a lasting solution to the quagmire, and not pointing accusing fingers.

Asked if the N388bn owed the banks by stockbrokers would not weigh them down, the deputy director recalled that the the CBN Governor, Prof. Chukwuma Soludo, had said at different fora that even if the banks were to write off the sum, they would not be shaken.

He argued that the current capital adequacy ratio of the banks was in the range of 22 per cent, a figure that is far above the eight per cent required ratio for OECD countries.

The Chartered Institute of Bankers had earlier on Tuesday promised to react to the SEC allegation , but failed to do so on Tuesday.

The CIBN Spokesman, Mr. Ben Igbokwe, however, said at about 8pm on Tuesday that the institute would react as soon as possible.

But a senior official of a first generation bank who spoke on condition of anonymity said that banks were not responsible for the stock market crisis.

He blamed the crisis on the sudden withdrawal of funds from the capital market by some foreign investors.

The official said, “These people came in in droves when many banks and other companies were going to the capital market with public offers and took heavy positions in stocks, this helped to push stock prices up and in turn encouraged many people to buy shares.

“As a result of the awareness in the public, many people approached banks for loans to buy shares, it was the in-thing, and banks did not say no, so when the foreign investors started to sell, there was panic. Those who borrowed had to sell and everything came down.”

He said it was wrong to blame the banks as stockbrokers encouraged clients to borrow to buy shares and also took loans themselves.

The official pointed out that those who took loans much earlier to buy shares actually made profits when stock prices rose to “unprecedented levels.”

Meanwhile, shareholders have challenged SEC to disclose the sick banks because failing to do so would not do the country any good.

The Chairman, Progressive Shareholders Association of Nigeria, Mr. Boniface Okezie, said, “I believe that the Securities and Exchange Commission is not doing us any good by not mentioning the names of the banks in question.

“Is it that they are afraid of mentioning the names? As the authority in the capital market, they should be in a better position to know these things. If the names are mentioned, then investors and Nigerians as a whole will know what to do concerning their investments in such banks.

“Or, is it that they want shareholders and Nigerians to lose more money than they have already done as a result of the capital market downturn in these past months?”

He added that SEC could help investors to save their investments by warning them about sick banks.

In a related development, a meeting of the capital marker stakeholders with Vice-President Goodluck Jonathan on the crisis in the capital market did not hold in Abuja on Tuesday as scheduled.

Our correspondents gathered that it was called off because of Jonathan’s trip to Ethiopia. A new date for the meeting was yet to be determined as at 9pm on Tuesday.

Also in Lagos, the Director of the Lagos Business School, Prof. Pat Utomi, called for the immediate commencement of an aggressive policy that would put money into the pockets of ordinary Nigerians through massive job creation initiatives.

Utomi, in a statement on Tuesday said, “We have made the point that the general global economic trend which has been moving towards recession in many countries will compound the problems of the poor.

“ At this rate, if our decision makers do not respond immediately, thoughts of its multidimensional effects on ordinary citizens of Nigeria are fearful.

“Policy makers would do us a great disservice if they don’t now begin to aggressively move policy and the thrust of the implementation of policy in the direction of ensuring that the bottom of the pyramid does not fall through the cracks.

“This can only be well done by ensuring that whatever interventions are made puts money into the pockets of ordinary people in a manner that leads them to stimulating productive activity that can further build them up to escape poverty rather than what can very easily become, from our experience, another opportunity for further economic rent to be extracted by the powerful and privileged from policies that are proposed to alleviate the distressing economic conditions.”

Utomi said government’s spending must now go in the direction that created massive jobs that pay small money.

He said, “We need to say to ourselves that part of the way that we would walk our way out of this crisis is that we create a couple of millions of jobs for people who would earn N20,000 and N35,000 a month.

“The tragedy of many of our own programmes is the tendency to focus on the elites and well-to-do rather than on the small guys, whereas the elite extracts rent from the system and he disappears from the country.

“Whatever policy we are making must focus on what would immediately create millions of jobs for small guys who will earn not less than 20 to N35,000.”

He also said that one of the important things that economic teams and public policy makers must focus on now was to stop waste in government expenditure.

“The fact that our budget is over 80 per cent recurrent expenditure is the nightmare driving the Nigerian economy, yet committees of the National Assembly and all kinds of state apparatus, from Local Governments to States, are committing resources to buying more cars for public officials, acquiring more aides, embarking on more travels and so on,” he said.

He said, “We need to say to ourselves that part of the way that we would walk our way out of this crisis is that we create a couple of millions of jobs for people who would earn N20,000 and N35,000 a month.

the problem is theres no data to say how many nigerian are employed or how many jobs are created or filled
in xyz sector how many jobs have been created since yaradua got into office?

Right now, we don’t need any data to tell us how many people are suffering or how many jobs the man has created ever since he got into power. This financial crisis is real, and it is affecting everybody including the rich and the poor. The government has to understand that fact, digest it and device a measure as soon as possible to combat and cushion the effect. They have to start from somewhere, N20, 000 /month or N10,000/month. Something needs to be done ASAP to boost the economy.

i dnt believe there can be any bailout in Naija,
the bailout money will just be shared to a few as usual.

Panic as Unilever, PZ threaten to leave Nigeria
05 Feb. 2009 00:00
Dipo Kehinde, Segun Adeleye & Segun Edwards

Unilever Plc and, Paterson Zochonis (PZ) Plc are considering pulling out of Nigeria, with possible relocation to neighbouring, Ghana because they could no longer bear the loss to business from the continued deplorable state of basic infrastructure in the country.

The companies are about to join the list of over 150 multinational industries that have divested from the economy since 1995.

According to the Nigerian Compass investigations, more than 60 per cent of local industries, mostly small scale enterprises, folded up since 1986, when the Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP), was introduced.

Going by official statistics, the organised private sector shed 131,000 jobs in 1997 alone, while 70,000 jobs were lost in the public sector. The figures have multiplied since then.

According to their official sites, both companies have combined workforce of 5,249 staff. PZ has a workforce of 3,775 in Nigeria, while Unilever has 1,474 employees.

There is anxiety in the business circle that the exit of the multinationals would further bring the economy to its kneels.

Both Unilever Plc and PZ Plc have been existing in Ghana.

According to sources, if they pull out of Nigeria, they would only need to expand their operations in the neighbouring country to sustain the Nigerian market which is their biggest in Africa.

Nigerian operations have consistently contribute a high proportion of PZ Cussons group’s earnings in recent years. But the complaint remains that the cost of production has hit the roof, due to the cost of self-generated power. A reliable source said PZ would not likely make a public announcement that it would pull out of Nigeria, but it is considering disposing its stock of raw materials and expanding its operations in Ghana.

The calculation of the firms that are finding Ghana attractive is that with the Economic Community of West African States’ free trade treaty, they can easily ship their goods back to service the Nigerian local market.

While Nigeria with over 6,000 megawatts (MW) of installed capacity of electricity power could barely generate 2,000MW, Ghana has been enjoying uninterrupted power supply for over 10 years. Energy experts say Nigeria, with a population of over 140 million, needs over 60,000MW to be self sufficient in power supply.

Comparatively, South Africa, with a population of 48 million can boast of over 39,500MW from Eskom, the counterpart of Nigeria’s NEPA.

Besides, inadequate power supply which cost billions of naira, Unilever and PZ are also said to be indifferent to the multiple taxations regime in Nigeria, which has also reduced their profits drastically.

On the implication of the possible relocation of the two firms to their shareholders, since they are listed on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE), a shareholder and leader of the Progressive Shareholders Association of Nigeria (PSAN), Mr Boniface Okezie said: “If it is true that the companies want to relocate, which is possible because they owe their shareholders the obligations to return value through returns, they may seek de-listing from the Exchange and value the worth of every shareholders’ in the company to be able to pay them off.”

According to him, government should, as a matter of urgency, intervene in the issue of the deplorable situation of basic infrastructure in the country.

He said that the same problem forced all the textile factories out of business, while the promise by government to bail out the industries with a proposed N70 billion intervention funds is yet to be fulfilled.

One of the listed companies in the stock market, CFAO, applied to the NSE for de-listing, over inability to continue to fulfil its obligations to shareholders two years ago, while shareholders were paid off.

According to sources, a possible relocation of PZ and Unilever from Nigeria would greatly hurt the economy in view of their operations that spread across the country, where they sustain many small businesses and families.

PZ Cussons Nigeria Plc is currently the largest subsidiary of PZ Cussons. It has over 100 years’ experience of trading in Africa and has enjoyed tremendous business success in Nigeria with a strong portfolio of local brands. The company’s tentacles spread to almost every state in the country.

It’s operations started in 1879, when George Paterson and George Zochonis set up a trading post in Sierra Leone.

In 1899, Paterson Zochonis (PZ) opened a branch office in Nigeria and acquired its first soap factory in the country in 1948.

In 1973, PZ entered the detergent and refrigerator markets, simultaneously in Nigeria. And in 2003, PZ Cussons Plc entered into a joint venture (Nutricima) with Glanbia Plc to supply evaporated milk and milk powder in Nigeria, two years later the Nutricima JV commenced manufacturing in Nigeria.

With 3,775 employees in Nigeria as against 556 in Ghana and 292 in Kenya, the group’s product lines, the main brands, include - Elephant Blue Detergent, Zip, Jet, Tempo, Rex, Morning Fresh.

Others are soaps, pharmaceuticals, balms, skin and baby care products including: Premier, Imperial Leather, Joy, Duck, Canoe, Drum, Super Atlas, Maladrin, Zubes, Robb, Heatol, Super Robb, Medicated Dusting Powder; Venus, Stella Pomade.

The company also stock perfumes, household appliances and diary products, namely: Dan Duala, Venus Gold, Joy Cologne, Coast milk, Nunu, Olympic, Power Fist, Haier Thermocool and a range of other electronics.

One of its key strengths in Africa is the extensive network of depots and factories in Nigeria.

The financial positions of PZ for the year ended May 31, 2008 revealed that the company’s turnover grew by 22 per cent from N54.21billion in 2007 to N65.94billion in 2008.

Its profit after tax rose to N3.95billion, in the year, from N3.52billion recovered in 2007, representing 12 per cent increase, while its profit before tax item equally grew by 12 per cent from N5.35billion in 2007 to N5.98billion

The company’s shareholders’ funds presently stands at N32.76billion as against N30.56billion in 2007, while it paid a tax of N2.02billion in the year under review as against N1.27 in 2007.

Its five-year financial summary showed that the company’s assets base grew from N21.57billion in 2004 to N36.28 billion in 2008.

The turnover has grown from N27.99billion in 2004 to N65.94billion. The basic earnings per share presently stands at N124 from N0.83 in 2004, N127 in 2005 and 2006, and 138 in 2007.

Shareholders were paid N2.01 per share in the current year, against N1.94 in 2007, while the number of shareholders of the company stands at 79,020, with PZ Cussons Plc, Manchester, United Kingdom having the majority holding of 61.4 per cent of the paid up capital as May 31, 2008.

Its Directors include Professor E.C Edozien, as the largest Nigerian shareholder with 3.88 million shares; Mr. B. Oyelola 441,106 shares; J.O. Akande, 76,435 shares; Mrs O.T. Ifaturoti, 20,226 shares and A.A. Raji 74,410 shares.

Unilever is a multi-national corporation, formed of Anglo-Dutch parentage that owns many of the world’s consumer product brands in foods, beverages, cleaning agents and personal care products. Unilever employs nearly 180,000 people and had a worldwide revenue of almost £40 billion in 2005.

Unilever Nigeria Plc, was incorporated as Lever Brothers (West Africa) Ltd on April 11, 1923 by Lord Leverhulme, but the company’s antecedents have to be traced back to his existing trading interests in Nigeria and West Africa generally, and to the fact that he had since the 19th century been greatly involved with the soap business in Britain.

Unilever Nigeria Plc started as a soap manufacturing company, and it is today one of the oldest surviving manufacturing organisations in Nigeria.

After series of mergers/acquisitions, the company diversified into manufacturing and marketing of foods, non-soapy detergents and personal care products. These mergers/acquisitions brought in Lipton Nigeria Ltd in 1985, and Cheesebrough Ponds Industries Ltd., in 1988. The company changed its name to Unilever Nigeria Plc in 2001.

Unilever Nigeria Plc is a public liability company quoted on the Nigerian Stock Exchange since 1973 with Nigerians currently having 49 per cent of equity holdings.

The company’s principal activity is manufacturing and marketing foods and food ingredients, and home and personal care products. It has manufacturing plants in Aba, Lagos and Agbara. Product brands include Blue Band, Close Up, Key, Knorr, Lipton, Lux, Omo, Pears, Royco and Vaseline.

Unilever PLC in 1994 divested its 40 per cent interest in UAC of Nigeria Plc while the latter became a wholly-owned Nigerian company.

Unilever’s financial report for the year ended December 31, 2007, showed that the turnover grew to N33.99 in the year from N25.55billion in 2006.

The company recorded a loss of N2.01billion in the period under review as against N2.12billion in 2006, while it incurred tax expenses of N716.61million as against N645.87million in 2006.

It paid a dividend of N945.82million as against nil in 2006, representing N0.05 per share to shareholders.

Its parent company, Unilever Overseas Holding B.V, has a majority holding of 1.89 billion shares, representing 50 per cent.

The company’s Directors include Apostle Hayford Alile, former Director General of the NSE, who has 31,250 shares; Egwe N.A Anichebe 65,976; Chief Samuel Adegbite, 227,543; Mr. Felix Ohiwerei, a former MD and Chairman of the company and also former MD and Chairman of Nigerian Breweries Plc.

Stimulus package for Nigerian enterprises
By Ike Abugu
Published: Monday, 9 Feb 2009
The recent announcement that the Federal Government was considering a $20 billion (N3tn) stimulus package made headline news in the media recently. Coming from Prof. Chukwuma Soludo, Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, a man who, only a few months ago, was in denial of any negative consequences of the global economic and financial meltdown, the development deserved the prominence it got in the media. Soludo can, of course, be understood and forgiven for his over-optimistic view of the Nigerian economy, especially the financial system. Truth be told, the Nigerian financial system, especially the banking system, has become more robust and more dependable under his watch. That is not to say that there are no problems. We shall return to this in the course of this write-up.

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Stimulus package for Nigerian enterprises

The financial and economic crisis, which had its roots in America’s biggest housing and credit bubble in history, has now spread globally, not only to Europe and Asia, but also to Africa! It has become the most severe global financial crisis since the Great Depression in the U.S. in the 1930s. It sounds fictitious, but it is true: within three weeks in late 2008, the American government did what would have been considered a taboo a year earlier: it nationalized the country’s two mortgage giants, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac; took over AIG, the world’s largest insurance company; extended government deposit insurance, and pledged to take up to $700 billion of toxic mortgage-related assets on to its books. Great names in investment banking –– Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns, and Merrill Lynch have disappeared overnight. Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley have converted to commercial banks.

The contagion soon spread to other countries, mainly OECD and other emerging economies. The United Kingdom, after two consecutive quarters of falling Gross Domestic Product (0.6 percent in Q3, and 1.5 percent in Q4 2008) is officially in a recession. Germany recently announced a stimulus package. Iceland nearly went bust, but for Russia. Ireland, once the darling of Europe in terms of investor-friendliness and high growth rates, is under critical care.

At first, we thought we were safe, since African economies were not integrated into the world economy. Although this is not a reason to celebrate (if you are not integrated, it means you are not important!), our economy’s managers were patting themselves on the back. The sad reality soon dawned on them: the Nigerian economy is, indeed, profoundly affected by the global crisis! I say the reality dawned “on them” because those of us in business had since started feeling the pinch before government officials owned up. A banker would suddenly start finding faults with an excellently packaged loan proposal which she had praised only a month earlier, and your account officer does not say exactly what is wrong; disbursement of funds for approved projects suddenly gets stuck; loans are recalled before maturity, new proposals are rejected outright, even without browsing through. So many telltale signs. Of course, your typical Nigerian banker will never tell you there is a problem with his bank. That is understandable; but there are civilized ways of conveying this message, so that the precious time of the entrepreneur is not wasted chasing non-existent funds.

Then, of course, there was the stock market bubble that burst last year, wiping out trillions of naira. Is there any link between the Nigerian stock market crash and the global financial meltdown? Some will swear there is none. Of course, there is. “Greed is good,” Gekko would say in the famous movie, Wall Street.

And now for the big one: the crash of crude oil prices from a peak of $147 per barrel to about $40! Suddenly, we are awake and aware. The exchange rate of the naira to the dollar has nose-dived from N117 to N150, with no signs of abating. It could get worse. Oil price could fall further to, say, $30 per barrel. Oil may become almost worthless in 20 years! The painful truth is, there is very little we can do to stem the tide, OPEC or no OPEC. All the vulnerabilities of the Nigerian economy are gradually coming to the fore: a mono-product economy .

The product is made and controlled by foreigners who simply pay rent to the Nigerian State; a casino economy of banks and other financial institutions showcasing varieties of “financial wizardry;” an import-dependent economy, critically sensitive to exchange rate fluctuations (the current 30 percent drop in the value of the naira against the dollar is sure to bankrupt many firms and families, thereby increasing poverty); an economy without basic physical infrastructure like stable grid electricity and rail/road transport system. And yet there is Vision 20: 2020! Fantastic!

There is only one way out of this deep quagmire. It is the narrow, tedious and long way, but it is the only way. The government must get down to the task of building the real economy. An economy with a strong productive base. An economy with world class infrastructure. An economy with viable Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs). An export-oriented, not import-dependent, economy. An economy that can feed its population, and still export food. An economy with minimal unemployment.

Specifically, as a matter of national priority, access to finance by micro, small and medium enterprises must be well liberalized to the point of interest-free loans! Do not tell me money is not the problem of SMEs. I know all that stuff about lack of records, skills and management weaknesses. But did you know that only five percent of Nigerian SMEs have access to finance? The equivalent figure in Kenya is 25 percent, and in China, it is 92 percent! The Small and Medium Enterprises Equity Investment Scheme (SMEEIS) introduced by Obasanjo in 2001, and quickly abrogated after Obasanjo’s departure (the bankers are “smart,” you know), must be brought back, even with greater commitment and sincerity by government. A credit guarantee scheme for SMEs, the blueprint of which has been ready since 2003, should be implemented immediately (all stimulus packages, whether America, British, German or French, have had to include provisions for loan guarantees!).

SMEs must enjoy tax holidays in the first five years of their existence, and pay single digit corporate tax thereafter. Out of the $20bn the government is planning as “safety net,” at least half of it ($10bn) should go to Nigerian SMEs (please note that, by official definition, any enterprise with net worth of N500m and below, excluding land and buildings, and employing less than 200 people, is an SME). By this definition (which was adopted by the Federal Executive Council, on SMEDAN’s recommendation), at least 90 percent of Nigerian firms are SMEs.

Particular attention should be paid to industrial and technology-intensive SMEs. Nigeria needs to industrialize urgently. With manufacturing contributing only about four percent of GDP, Nigeria is still very far from qualifying as an industrialized nation (that would require 25 percent contribution by manufacturing sector to GDP). The issue of physical infrastructure is, of course, top priority, but it has been raised so many times that I fear the concerned officials and institutions have developed the opposite of what we would want from them: indifference or even hostility!

The foregoing is just a summary of what we think should be done. If you want to develop an economy, empower genuine entrepreneurs. Government and bureaucrats do not create jobs directly. They do not produce goods and services. Entrepreneurs do. What governments (and I mean all governments – federal, state, local) should do is create a business-friendly environment: low taxes, excellent infrastructure, friendly financial system, etc., and leave the rest to entrepreneurs.

Unless and until these measures are taken, the country will continue to wallow from crisis to crisis. But, as they say in churches these days, that shall not be our portion!

Dr. Abugu is the National President & Chairman of Council, Nigerian Association of Small & Medium Enterprises (NASME).

PZ has been in NIgeria for decades and now we get to loose a company that provides thousands of families with jobs because of our stupidity?

I doubt the injection of capital would make much difference to be honest!

A lot more needs to be done!!!

These companies need to speak up - They've been silent for too long because they could still find ways to make a profit in our very poor environment.

If  the government won't listen to it's citizens, it may be willing to listen to corporate bodies that provide tax revenue and job opportunities.

We don't need 'capital injection' as such - FIX basic infrastructure and many businesses will thrive. Excessive spending on power, roads, water, security and the likes leading to high overhead costs lie at the root of our problems.

One has to ask why those in government do most all they can to avoid solving the main problems in that country. What is up with this trend?