The Nigerian Stock Exchange, NSE said it has postponed the listing of Airtel Africa over its inability to meet up with the listing requirements.

The NSE said in a statement that:

"The Nigerian Stock Exchange has postponed the planned listing of Cross Border Secondary Listing of 3,758,151,504 ordinary shares of Airtel Africa Plc until Monday 8th July 2019.

"The NSE disclosed that the postponement was necessitated by ensure that the Company meets all the post NSE approval pre-requisites for listing on the NSE. However, the Facts Before the Listing event will hold as planned at 11.00 a.m. on Friday, July 5, 2019.:

In the meantime, the company’s Facts Behind the Figure will hold later today on the floor of the Nigerian Stock Exchange," the exchange said in a statement.

The latest decision by the NSE is slightly contradicting its decision to grant a waiver for Airtel to go ahead with its listing despite not having up to 300 shareholders.

India's Bharti Airtel had announced its plan to execute a dual listing on the London Stock Exchange and the NSE. It was a move planned to reduce debt overload of Nigeria's second largest mobile carrier.

Source: https://pageone.ng/2019/07/05/nse-postpones-airtel-africa-listing/

Nigeria's Securities and Exchange Commission, SEC, has just barred  Mr. Wale Tinubu, the CEO of Oando Plc from being a director in any company for five years.

The SEC ordered the company to convene "An Extra-ordinary General Meeting of the company consisting the shareholders before July 1 to appoint new directors."

The decision of the SEC means that Mr. Wale Tinubu would be removed as the substantive chief executive officer of Oando plc.

Oando is a Nigerian indigenous oil company with several interests across the various value chain of the oil and gas industry.

Read more-https://pageone.ng/2019/05/31/sec-bars-oando-ceo-wale-tinubu-for-five-years/

Africa's largest eCommerce company, Jumia, said its losses for the first half 2018 financial year rose beyond estimate, a signal that the company has many more years to turn a profit.

Rocket Internet, the parent of the troubled eCommerce company said its share of the loss attributed to its 28% stake in Jumia was EUR13.6 million which means the estimated loss of the company for the half year was about EUR60 million.

The full loss for the period could not be ascertained because Rocket Internet has stopped showing the full profit or loss of the company.

Despite this sequence of disappointing bottom line for the eCommerce company's revenue for the period rose sharply by 62% year on year. While this is a very positive development, the company has just shown that it needed to exit or not even get into all the business it sold off in the last two years.

For the period under review, Jumia reported a gross margin value, was EUR 163.4m in Q2 2018, representing 61.9% YoY growth in absolute Euro terms (80.9% on constant currency basis). The number of active consumers reached 2.8m as of H1 2018, growing by 78.7% YoY.

The company said the growth "illustrates Jumia’s deep local expertise, its strong brand and its powerful platform." While this is a very impressive result, its EBITDA shows Jumia still has a long way to go in shedding off huge debt in its balance sheet.

Jumia said it will continue to focus on driving "more sellers and more products and services to the platform in order to increase the attractiveness to consumers in terms of selection and price. Moreover, as part of its continued commitment to driving attractiveness to consumers, Jumia has recently introduced a number of new digital payment solutions and services, such as airtime recharge or utility payments, which help consumers save time and money on more types of daily needs."

Source: https://pageone.ng/2018/09/20/jumia-sinks-deeper-into-losses-as-revenue-rises/

Nigeria’s largest eCommerce company by business value and coverage, Jumia said its losses further widened in the first quarter of 2018.

For the first quarter of the year, Jumia’s negative adjusted earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and ammortisation (gross losses) rose to EUR30.7 million which is approximately N12.5 billion on real-time currency exchange rate basis.

The result further shows that its losses rose by 29.5% on a year on year basis because it reported a negative adjusted EBITDA (gross losses) of EUR23.7 million in 2017 within the same quarter.

The result sure had some positives for Jumia. Gross revenue for the period rose by to EUR28.0 million compared to EUR19.2 million reported in 2017.

Rocket Internet, the parent company of Jumia said it in the report that “grew GMV to EUR 151 million in Q1 2018, a 70.9% increase over Q1 2017. With EUR 211 million pro-forma cash, Jumia remains well funded to develop its operations on the African continent.”

“In the first quarter of 2018, our selected companies continued to make progress on their path towards profitability, while demonstrating sustainable growth”, said Oliver Samwer, CEO of Rocket Internet.

Despite seeing increments in its quarter on quarter revenue, Jumia’s losses continue to increase which further dampens hopes that the company will enter profitability in 2019 as predicted by Kimpel, Rocket’s CFO. It is not clear how far the parent company will continue to pump more cash to bloat Jumia’s business.

Rocket had taken strategic steps to cut down Jumia’s losses by selling off business units that are virtually bleeding cash without commensurate revenue contribution.

Last month we did report that Rocket is planning to sell off its stake in Jumia via a planned IPO which is being planned for Paris. There are no confirmations on the rumoured IPO and when it is likely to hold.

Jumia is in direct competition with Zinox Group’s Konga, a smaller rival which recently merged its operations with Yudala, the parent company’s offline and online retailer which focused its core operations on its offline stores where it sells majorly consumer electronics and smartphones.

Source: https://pageone.ng/2018/05/30/losses-jumia-rose-n12-5-billion-q1/

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, has charged Globacom Limited alongside its Chief Marketing Officer, Ashok Israni on one count charge of fraud.

Globacom is Nigeria's third largest mobile carrier after it slightly overthrown as the second largest carrier by Bharti Sorrel's local subsidiary, Airtel Nigeria.

The EFCC which is Nigeria's anti-graft police said the alleged fraud was to the tune of $6.7 million.

Lagos State Special Offences Court in Ikeja for an alleged fraud of $6,786,674.61.

Globacom was the second defendant in the case while it's Chief Marketing Officer, Ashok Israni, who was listed as the first defendant in the case.

The one count filed before Justice A.O. Williams against the defendants, read, “Ashok Israni and Globacom Limited, sometime in 2008 in Lagos, within the Ikeja Judicial Division, with intent to defraud, induced Emitac Mobile Solutions LLC, Dubai, United Arab Emirates to confer a benefit on you by permitting Emitac Mobile Solutions LLC to provide you with Blackberry solutions services, valued at USD 6,786,674.64 on the understanding that the benefit will be paid for, which pretence you knew to be false.”

The prosecuting counsel for the EFCC, Mr. A.B.C. Ozioko, who signed the charge sheet, claimed that the firm and Israni acted contrary to Section 1(2)(3) of the Advance Fee Fraud and Other Fraud Related Offences Act No. 14 of 2006.

However, when the case was called in court on Monday, the defendants were not in court.

The prosecutor, Ozioko, said the EFCC was making efforts to produce Israni, who had been granted an administrative bail by the anti-graft agency.

“My lord, we are sorry we are not able to produce the defendants.

“As part of efforts to ensure that trial commences, we brought the complainants all the way from Dubai.

“We have no choice but to seek a date for arraignment,” he said.

Source: https://pageone.ng/2018/04/17/nigerian-anti-graft-police-arraigns-globacom-exec-6-7-million-fraud/

Despite several cuts and tweaks to its business model and structure, it appears all is not still well with Jumia.

This is because, after two years of pressure and record losses, Jumia said it losses rose beyond forecast for the full year 2017

Jumia, Africa's largest eCommerce company said it made a net loss of N53.3 billion for the full financial year of 2017. This is a major negative and huge difference compared to N40.5 billion reported in 2016.

Full-year revenue for Jumia came in at EUR93.8 million compared to EUR89 million reported in 2016.

There are various sides to this result and the more we look at the company's summary result released by Rocket Internet, its parent company, the more we see more signs of worry for Jumia going forward.

Source: https://pageone.ng/2018/04/13/jumia-losses-parent-company/

Various structural changes have been applied to the business model of Jumia in the last three years. On August 30, 2016 Africa eCommerce Holding GmbH, the holding company of Jumia, was merged into Africa Internet Holding GmbH (formerly trading under Africa Internet Group).

In its usual flowery comment, Rocket Internet said in its official statement that:

In June 2016, all business models of Africa Internet Group were renamed under the Jumia brand.

It is now very clear that Rocket Internet plans to sell off the company via an IPO was a sound decision given the fact that after five years, there are no signs that Jumia would break-even before it caves-in.

Konga, Jumia's arch-rival has also witnessed its near-end before it was sold to Zinox Group for undisclosed amounts.

While Kinnevik and Naspers have not disclosed the terms of the transactions, there are feelers that the company was sold for a ridiculously low amount with up to 99% loss on equity.

Nigeria's top financial services regulator, the Securities and Exchange Commission, SEC has suspended all trading in shares of Oando Plc.

Oando and some of its top shareholders have been engaged in a fierce battle over the control of the company. The SEC said Oando it is stopping trading in the shares of the company over several irregularities.

The SEC said in a statement earlier today that:

The Securities & Exchange Commission received two petitions from Alhaji Dahiru Barau Mangal and Ansbury Incorporated. The Commission carried out a comprehensive review of the petitions and made the following findings amongst others:

Read more: https://pageone.ng/2017/10/18/sec-trading-shares-oando/

Coca-Cola HBC AG, the bottler of CocaCola has announced the death of its chief executive officer, Dimitris Lois.

In a short statement released by the company said:

With deep sadness the death of its CEO, Dimitris Lois, on 2 October 2017.

“We are deeply saddened by the news of Dimitris’s death. It was a great privilege to know him personally and to work alongside him for so many years.” said Anastassis David, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Coca-Cola HBC.

“Dimitris will always be remembered for his dedication to our people and for the values he stood for.”

Read more: https://pageone.ng/2017/10/03/dimitris-lois-ceo-coca-cola-hbc-ag/

As a follow up to the announcement that Germany's Allianz has acquired Ensure Insurance, latest updates show that the group paid USD35 million for 98% stake in the Nigerian company.

The amount of the transaction is about NGN11,536,000,000 using real time exchange rate.

The deal awaits regulatory approval from Nigeria. Ensure Insurance is yet to make public disclosure on the transaction.

Read more: https://pageone.ng/2017/08/30/allianz-paid-ngn11-5-billion-to-acquire-ensure-insurance/

Zenith Bank Nigeria PLC has just overtaken First Bank PLC as the largest bank in Nigeria.

The data is based on both bank’s financial reports which showed that Zenith Bank’s total asset base is now NGN4.9 trillion compared to FBN Holdings’ NGN4.8 trillion total asset base.

Read more https://pageone.ng/2017/08/25/zenith-bank-overtakes-first-bank-as-the-largest-bank-in-nigeria/

Former Etisalat Nigeria, 9mobile has announced that there is a technical disruption to its data services across the country.

The company said in an email statement that said it:

"would like to inform the public of a network outage in one of its data centres which resulted in service disruption. We are aware that subscribers may be experiencing some disruption with voice, SMS and data services due to this technical issue"

Read more: https://pageone.ng/2017/08/23/9mobile-announces-data-service-disruptions-begs-customers/

For the first half of the year, MTN Group Africa’s largest mobile carrier said a 10.8% growth in Nigeria pushed its revenue to USD294.35 million.

Using a real time exchange rate, total revenue is approximately NGN107 billion or ZAR64 billion for its local currency in South Africa or NGN134 billion.

Read more https://pageone.ng/2017/08/03/nigerias-10-8-growth-pushes-mtn-group-h1-revenue-107-billion/

Less than a year after Rocket Internet's Africa Internet Group, AIG was collapsed into Jumia, the company has shut down Jumia Market, its merchant based marketplace formerly called Kaymu.

Sources close to Jumia said over 70 staff on the Jumia Market team were laid off with just about 15 people left in the team.

Jumia has not commented on the matter. However, the company is not likely to comment on the matter as it is major controlled from Berlin by Rocket Internet, its holding company which owns about 24% stake in the company.

Read more:https://pageone.ng/2017/08/02/rocket-internets-jumia-shuts-jumia-market/

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Oando Nigeria PLC is said to be under investigation by Nigeria’s Securities and Exchange Commission, SEC, for share structure manipulations.

According to media reports who cited reliable sources in the capital markets claimed the SEC had conducted several weeks of investigations on Oando Nigeria, upon which the Board and Management of Oando Nigeria have been written a formal letter to explain matters relating to observed malpractices in the company’s financial statements.

Read more https://pageone.ng/2017/07/14/sec-investigate-oando-nigeria-share-structure-manipulations/

Reliable sources within the financial services and fintech sector claim Interswitch is in talks to acquire Konga, one of Nigeria's major eCommerce site.

According to sources, the acquisition has reached an advanced stage with Naspers and Kinnevik AB, two of the major investors in Konga whose investment has not yielded a profit as disclosed by Kinnevik.

Naspers is Africa's most valuable company with over 60% stake in China's Tencent Holdings with a worth of USD114 billion which the group said it will not sell. Kinnevik is a Swedish tech investment major with over 40% stake in Konga.

Konga is in direct competition with Jumia, another general merchandise eCommerce site owned by Rocket Internet and a consortium of other local and regional investors.

Read more: https://pageone.ng/2017/06/28/interswitch-reportedly-talks-acquire-konga/

The European Commission has banned Med-View Airlines from flying to any part of the European territory.

The European Commission also banned other airlines including Seven individual airlines, based on safety concerns with regard to these airlines themselves: Iran Aseman Airlines (Iran), Iraqi Airways (Iraq) and Blue Wing Airlines (Suriname), Mustique Airways (St Vincent and the Grenadines), Aviation Company Urga (Ukraine) and Air Zimbabwe (Zimbabwe).

The commission said it also placed operational restrictions.

Read more: https://pageone.ng/2017/05/17/eu-bans-all-med-view-flights-on-safety-concerns/

MTN Group might have another problem on its hands as MTN Rwanda has just been slammed fine totaling up to USD8.5 million.

According to Thomson Reuters, MTN Group, the South Africa-based company had acknowledged receipt of fine notification from Rwanda utilities regulatory authority.

The company's Rwandan unit, MTN Rwanda confirmed that it has received official notification of a fine equivalent to USD8,5 million from Rwanda utilities regulatory authority (RURA).

The company is being fined for non-compliance with directives issued by regulator prohibiting inclusion of MTN Rwanda in MTN South and East Africa (sea) it hub based in Uganda.

Read more: https://pageone.ng/2017/05/17/rwanda-fines-mtn-rwanda-usd8-5-million/

The Bank of Ghana, the country’s central bank has issued a fraud alert on MMM Ghana.

MMM Ghana is owned by MMM Global affiliate. This is the same group of people who ran MMM Nigeria, Ponzi scheme that wrecked many Nigerian investors before it collapsed in December 2016.

Bank of Ghana through its spokesperson, Caroline Otoo, said:

It has come to the notice of the Management of the Bank of Ghana that anEntity named MMM Ghana apart from operating a virtual office is moving from place to place and mobilizing deposits from the general public.

Source https://pageone.ng/2017/05/12/bank-ghana-issues-fraud-alert-mmm-ghana/

In its first quarter update. MTN Group said its revenue from its Nigerian unit, MTN Nigeria delivered an 11.6% year over year growth in revenue.

The company attributed the uptake in revenue to a 71.3% increase year over year growth in data revenue.

However, the following quarters will remain very tough as the company disclosed that its subscriber base declined by 2.3% in the quarter in comparison to last year’s milestone.

With this MTN would have lost about 1.4 million of its subscribers in the first quarter. However, MTN is not the only one hurting in the market. Etisalat, the smallest carrier has also seen much pressure with its inability to pay its debt and declare profit since it started in 2008.

Read more https://pageone.ng/2017/05/03/mtn-nigeria-revenue-rises-11-6-q1/

Lagos, Nigeria's commercial capital said in its annual financial update that it recorded a total of USD1.02 billion, which is approximately NGN312.820 billion for the full year 2016.

The said amount was realised from internally generated revenue,IGR, a summary of all taxes, levies and income received within the state.

The state saw significant improvement on a year on year basis. Total revenue for 2015 calendar year was NGN247.946 billion. However, the year saw 80% achievement in revenue target and 69% of total revenue for the year.

This means Lagos state realised NGN65 billion increment in IGR revenue year on year representing 26% year on year growth.

The state's Commissioner for Finance, Mr. Akinyemi Ashade, disclosed that its revenue achieved for 2016 was 75% of the government's projection for the year. This means the state missed its own estimate for the full year 2016 by 25% year on year.

Read more: https://pageone.ng/2017/04/25/lagos-revenue-2016/

Rocket Internet, the parent company of Jumia said it reduced its full year EBITDA losses of EUR234 million. However, the result still shows a huge pile of losses that must be worked on.

Reporting an EBITDA losses of EUR741.5 million loss, the result shows that company has cut its losses by 176% on a year on year basis.

Jumia, its Nigerian company with operations across other African countries saw a reduction in its adjusted EBITDA losses from EUR161.3 million in 2015 to EUR91.9 million in 2016. This is approximately NGN30.6 billion using official real time exchange rate.

Rocket Internet claimed that the collapsing of Africa Internet Group into Jumia has had a ‘positive effect on user behavior and brand recognition’.

The report covers aggregate sales of Rocket Internet’s companies which includes its Food & Groceries, Fashion, General Merchandise and Home & Living.

Read more https://pageone.ng/2017/04/25/jumia-cuts-its-full-year-loss-to-eur92-million-in-2016/

Unilever Nigeria PLC said it plans to sell off its spread (butter) business. The company’s butter business includes its BlueBand variants.

The company made the announcement yesterday to the Nigerian Stock Exchange saying:

We hereby give the Nigerian Stock Exchange and the Investing Public notification of the recent announcement by the Unilever Group (attached) of the intention to divest its spreads business as part of the outcome of the strategic review embarked on.

This announcement has no immediate effect on the activities of Unilever Nigeria plc. We shall keep the Nigerian Stock Exchange informed of any subsequent development on this matter.

The company has not disclosed the preferred buyer of the business. Should it go ahead with the sales, the company will be having only its savoury, personal care and detergent business.

The positioning will also bring it in close competition with Nestle, a bigger company that competes with Unilever in savoury business.

Read more https://pageone.ng/2017/04/20/unilever-nigeria-sell-butter-business/

Ecobank Transnational Corporation said that the group recorded a net loss of NGN52.6 billion for the full year 2016.

This approximately USD204 million loss based on the company's Forex conversion.

The company's bottomline suffered huge impairment on a year on year basis.

On the topline, year on year interest income rose by 24% to NGN429 billion versus NGN345 billion disclosed in the year 2015.

The inflationary regime showed in the bank's major spending as interest expenses rose by 22% to NGN145 billion compared to 119 billion in the previous year.

Fees and commissions only rose by 8% year on year to NGN124 billion compared to NGN115 billion.

Read more: https://pageone.ng/2017/04/18/ecobank-loss-2016/

To stabilise its operation after the divestment of Tiger Brands, Dangote Noodles has been sold by Dangote Flour Mills to Dufil Prima Foods Limited, makes of Indomie Noodles.

As part of the deal, Dufil is expected to produce noodles under the Dangote Noodles brand name for the next two years using the production line. The company will phase out the brand name afterwards to its own.

Thabo Mabo, said the divestment is part of the strategic moves of Dangote Flour Mills to focus on its core pasta production activities, an area where the company has an upper hand.

Indomie is the largest maker of noodles in Nigeria with over 60% market share across the country. The acquisition of Dangote Noodles is expected to push its share of market to nearly 80%.

Confirming the deal, the Chief Executive Officer, Dufil Prima Foods, Deepak Singhal said the acquisition has been perfected to involve the entire asset of the company. Dufil will also be retaining substantial employees of Dangote Noodles while others will be paid off based on a negotiation with the workers union.

Read more: https://pageone.ng/2017/04/19/dufil-acquires-dangote-noodles/

Stanbic IBTC Bank, a Standard Bank unit in Nigeria has disclosed that Etisalat owes the bank USD24 million.

This is approximately NGN7.3 billion using the current official exchange rate.

The bank made the statement to analysts in Lagios adding that restructuring talks were "ongoing".

Etisalat Nigeria, a subsidiary of Abu Dhabi-listed telecoms company Etisalat UAE has been discussing with 13 local banks about renegotiating the terms of a USD1.2 billion loan after missing a payment.

"The members are continuing discussions with Etisalat with the hope of restructuring the loan," the bank told an analysts' call in Lagos, Nigeria's commercial capital.

Read more https://pageone.ng/2017/03/29/etisalat-nigeria-stanbic/

After a not so successful attempt to to push its own messaging app, Mara Social said it has acquired Nimbuzz, a long time messaging app that lost ground in the wake of Facebook and even WhatsApp.

In 2015, Mara had announced it will launch a messaging app for mobile and even an eCommerce platform that was to mimic Alibaba Group's model for Africa and Africans to trade with the world.

Mara did not disclose how much it paid for Nimbuzz's asset.

Nimbuzz was launched in 2008, before Facebook and Twitter gained grounds as leaders in social networking and messaging.

Mara will be looking at leveraging the 200 million subscribers to boost its user base for Mara Chat

https://pageone.ng/2017/03/23/mara-social-acquires-nimbuzz-messaging/

Lagos, Nigeria’s commercial capital will be adding NGN500 (USD1.5) annual car radio license to every annual vehicle license renewal.

Sources at Lagos state Motor Vehicle Administration Agency (MVAA), confirmed the new policy.

The levy will not be paid in isolation but an add on to the annual vehicle license fee.

https://pageone.ng/2017/03/22/lagos-170-million-car-radio-license/

The Central Bank of Nigeria said it agreed to keep interest rate at 14% despite a slight fall in inflation, first in the last 15 months.

As predicted by analysts, the CBN said the “the economy remained in recession with inflationary pressures continuing
unabated. These adverse external and domestic conditions continued to complicate the policy environment”.

The MPC committee said in consideration of the headwinds in the domestic economy and the uncertainties in the global
environment, decided by 9 out of 10 members to retain the MPR at 14.0 per cent alongside all other policy parameters.

Read more https://pageone.ng/2017/03/21/cbn-interest-rate-14-inflation/