Business News

Thursday, 15 July 2021 05:34

Warren Buffet thinks you should hire for integrity first. Here are 5 questions you must ask job candidates

CEO of Berkshire Hathaway says, 'if you're going to get someone without integrity, you want them lazy and dumb.' Honesty and integrity are in critically short supply these days. To Warren Buffett, arguably the world's most successful investor, integrity is a non-negotiable to establishing high-trust teams. In a 1998 speech at the University of Florida, Buffett gave MBA students a business lesson for competitive advantage that comes from having integrity be the guide to your business decisions. And it starts with whom you hire. Buffett said: We look for three things when we hire people. We look for intelligence, we…

Wednesday, 14 July 2021 05:42

4 ways to instill and promote transparency in a workplace

Conventional wisdom says knowledge is power, and earlier in my career I always associated this mantra with those leaders who protected and validated their positions by hoarding and hiding knowledge from their competitors -- and often their colleagues -- as a power play. But recently, this age-old adage has taken on a new meaning for me. As we’ve built our business, I’ve realized this concept, that knowledge is power, can also be interpreted and applied in the workplace in a really positive way. A happy and productive workplace is one that shares information freely to empower employees. This is a…

Tuesday, 13 July 2021 05:51

N41trn paid for imported goods, N4trn back in as exports. Here are details of Nigeria’s trades in manufactured goods in 4 years

Between January 2017 and March 2021, Nigeria spent N40.94tn on the importation of manufactured goods. It earned only N4.22tn on the export of manufactured goods within the same period. These are according to data obtained from the Foreign Trade report of the National Bureau of Statistics. In the review period, total value of imports was N66.43tn and total value of exports was N67.30tn. Manufactured goods dominated the import bill but contributed little to the export receipts of the nation. Nigeria’s exports were dominated by crude oil according to statistics obtained from the NBS. In the review period, the nation exported…

Monday, 12 July 2021 05:51

A year after expanding to Europe, Nigerian fintech Lidya raises $8.3m to scale lending operations

Nigerian fintech and lending startup Lidya announced that it has completed its $8.3 million pre-Series B funding round. Alitheia Capital led the investment via its uMunthu Fund. Other investors that participated include Bamboo Capital Partners, Accion Venture Lab and Flourish Ventures. In addition to the $1.3 million seed round secured in 2017 and $6.9 million Series A a year later, Lidya has raised a total of $16.5 million. This investment will see Lidya grow its lending operations for small and medium businesses across its markets. The idea for Lidya came about in Nigeria when Tunde Kehinde and Ercin Eksin saw…

Monday, 12 July 2021 05:49

Foreign investors’ interest in Nigeria declined 27.5 percent in Q1, 2021 - Report

Nigeria received about $8.4bn investment announcements as at 4th March 2021, out of which $5.46bn was pledged by foreign investors. The remaining $2.08bn was promised by domestic investors, statistics obtained from the Nigerian Investments Promotion Commission showed. The sum pledged by foreign investors in Q1 2021 is 27.5 per cent lower than the $7.54bn foreign investment announcements recorded by the NIPC in the preceding quarter. However, the Q1 foreign investment profile was 36.5 per cent higher than the $4.02bn reported in the corresponding period in 2020, but was 56.6 per cent lower than the S12.6bn recorded in the same period…

Monday, 12 July 2021 05:37

Most small business owners are middle-aged, not ‘cool kids’ the media loves

When you think of the typical small business do you think of the savvy and beautiful actor Anne Hathaway, who ran a Brooklyn-based fashion startup in The Intern? Or maybe you’re thinking of Jesse Eisenberg’s portrayal of Mark Zuckerberg in The Social Network? TV ads show young and energetic entrepreneurs hustling their way to success. Business magazine covers at the airport feature the cool kids making cool millions. These are the young and beautiful faces of entrepreneurship that the media loves. The reality is the face of small business looks a lot more like me. I’m 56 and I own…

Saturday, 10 July 2021 05:38

Profit taking pushes NSE stocks down N247bn

Nigerian stocks weakened further on Friday as the benchmark index narrowed by 1.24 per cent, taking a bashing from investors’ frantic efforts to swiftly dispose shares and cash in after gains had gradually accumulated for some days. Shares began to plateau on Thursday, but the downward shift gained pace by as much as N247 billion the session after as the bears stormed the mark in full force with their eyes on the heaps of gains garnered in the nine days to July 4. At the forefront of the retreat was Airtel Africa, with Vitafoam, NAHCO and Eterna also stoking the…

Saturday, 10 July 2021 05:37

Naira falls further at parallel, official markets

The naira fell against the U.S dollar at the parallel market on Friday after maintaining stability in the past seven consecutive sessions of the unofficial market segment. Data posted on abokiFX.com, a website that collates parallel market rates in Lagos, showed that naira closed at N505.00 per $1 at the black market window. This represents a N2.00 or 0.40 per cent devaluation from N503.00, the rate it has been trading since June 30, last month. Similarly, the domestic unit fell further against the U.S dollar at the official market on Friday, data posted on the FMDQ Security Exchange where forex…

Friday, 09 July 2021 05:42

It's official: The older you are, the more likely you’ll be to start a successful business

A 60-year-old startup founder is 3 times more likely to launch a successful startup than a 30-year-old, and nearly twice as likely to launch a startup in the top 0.1 percent of all companies. Helio Castroneves just won the Indy 500. He's 46. Phil Mickelson just won the PGA Championship; at age 50, he's the oldest major tournament winner. Then there's Tom Brady, who won his seventh Super Bowl at age 43. Granted, quarterbacks tend to have longer careers than other position players. Despite the recent wave of talented young golfers, the sport tends to reward experience over raw athleticism.…

Thursday, 08 July 2021 06:00

Despite FG’s ban on cryptocurrency trading, the business continues to boom in Nigeria. This is why

Nigeria’s regulators tried to crack down on cryptocurrency. Now, a few months later, it’s clear their efforts haven’t worked. The nation is a prime example of how people will turn to crypto to cope with a struggling economy despite the prohibitive stance of the state. In February, the Central Bank of Nigeria ordered banks to “identify persons and/or entities” who were conducting transactions in crypto or running crypto exchanges and “ensure that such accounts are closed immediately.” But that ban didn’t stamp out bitcoin in Nigeria. Rather, the crypto community turned to peer-to-peer trades, or sending payments directly to each…

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Thursday, 08 July 2021 05:58

Anticipated banks’ financial reports drive stocks on NSE up by N430bn

Nigerian stocks were up 0.22 per cent on Wednesday, on course for another week of positive return, as traders and investors continued to shift their gaze to some of the big bank stocks to take strategic positions ahead of the release of companies quarterly and half-year earnings reports due any moment from now. Access, the country’s biggest bank by asset, drove the rise, supported by rival Zenith and also Custodian Investment. In the spirit of the earnings season, tier 2 lender Fidelity told the Nigerian Exchange Limited in a Wednesday note of its closed period schedule and the plan of…

Thursday, 08 July 2021 05:43

Want to get rich? 21 self-made billionaires say people who build wealth answer this question the same way

How much money you make definitely matters. But what you do--and don't do--with what the money you make matters even more. If financial success is your goal -- and most of us include some degree of wealth in our individual definitions of success -- your personality definitely plays a role. (According to a 2018 study, rich people possess these five personality traits.) But so does how you answer one simple question. Rafael Badziag interviewed 21 self-made billionaires while writing The Billion Dollar Secret: 20 Principles of Billionaire Wealth and Success. Some credited a willingness to take intelligent risks. Some credited…

Tuesday, 06 July 2021 05:48

4 first-time founder mistakes to avoid at all costs

Recently founded a startup or planning to soon? These are some of the most common founder mistakes to avoid, including how to avoid burnout. When I was only 23, I started my company by myself, with no outside funding or support. In a few years, I scaled the company into a multimillion-dollar business with over 50 people working for me. But then I burned out hard. After a creative retreat, I figured out how to pivot and increase my business' profitability, while spending significantly less time managing it. These days, I'm focused on investing in smart founder's building interesting SaaS…

Monday, 05 July 2021 06:02

4 out of 10 Nigerian bank workers are on contract earning slave wages - Report

For Basit, climbing the corporate ranks of commercial banking in Nigeria has been an exercise in frustration. The 28-year-old, whose name has been changed to protect his identity, has worked as a teller with Fidelity Bank in Nigeria since 2015. Six years on, he is at the same branch, working at the same entry-level position, for the same meagre salary of 68,000 naira ($165) a month. It is not Basit’s work ethic that is lacking, but the arrangement under which he works. He is not technically a full-time employee of Fidelity. The entire time he’s worked there, he’s been a…

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