Business News

Thursday, 25 March 2021 05:17

This simple leadership hack will improve employee retention and productivity

Two words can make a world of difference. Working from home during the pandemic has had its upsides--and its downsides. Many have appreciated not having to commute and the flexibility that allows them to care for their children, but others have missed the buzz of the office and the sense of human connectionthey get from working in the same physical space as their colleagues. Analysts now suggest that a hybrid solution -- working from home and working from the office -- may be possible in the latter half of 2021, although skeptics think it could be further away. In the…

Wednesday, 24 March 2021 05:50

Oil extends losses on oversupply worries

Oil prices plunged about 6% on Tuesday, falling even lower in post-settlement trade, as concerns over new pandemic curbs and slow vaccine rollouts in Europe added to oversupply uneasiness. Brent crude futures settled down $3.83, or 5.9%, at $60.79 a barrel, after hitting a session low of $60.50. West Texas Intermediate crude (WTI) ended $3.80, or 6.2%, lower at $57.76 a barrel, after touching a low of $57.32. Both benchmarks traded near lows not seen since Feb. 9. The front-month Brent spread flipped into a small contango for the first time since January. Contango is where front-month contracts are cheaper…

Tuesday, 23 March 2021 05:35

FG devalues Naira, third time in one year

Nigeria adopted a new flexible exchange-rate policy for official transactions in a move that effectively marks the third devaluation of the naira in a year. The government will start to use the flexible rate, that has until now applied to investors and exporters, for government transactions too, Finance Minister Zainab Ahmed told reporters Monday in the capital, Abuja. The Nafex, as the flexible rate is known, has averaged 410 naira to the dollar since the beginning of the year and compares with the Central Bank of Nigeria’s old fixed rate of 379 naira. “Within the government and the central bank,…

Tuesday, 23 March 2021 05:30

NNPC to hold minority equity in revamped Port Harcourt refinery - Official

Nigeria’s state-owned oil company plans to become a minority shareholder in its largest refinery after finishing refurbishments on it, according to Managing Director Mele Kyari. The West African nation has approved a budget of $1.5 billion for revamping the Nigerian National Petroleum Corp.’s refinery in Port Harcourt in the southern part of the country It, along with NNPC’s three other refinery complexes, has been shut down pending repairs. When operational, they have a combined capacity of 445,000 barrels a day. NNPC will gradually step away from operating the Port Harcourt refinery after putting it back on track, Kyari said in…

Tuesday, 23 March 2021 05:29

Fuel marketers jerk up diesel price

Against the backdrop of the recent rise in global oil prices, some fuel marketers have increased the price of Automotive Gas Oil, also known as diesel, to a new high of N265 per litre. Last month, diesel price rose to a high of N250 per litre. Our correspondent observed on Sunday that some filling stations in Lagos State were selling the product for between N248 and N265 per litre while some put the price at between N220 and N245 per litre. Mobil filling station along the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway and Nipco at Fadeyi axis of Ikorodu Road increased the pump price…

Saturday, 20 March 2021 06:05

Investors on NSE lose N279bn on sell pressure

Nigerian stocks retreated by 1.37 per cent on Friday, obliterating the feeble gain recorded at the session before as a number of big-cap stocks like MTN, Dangote Cement and BUA Cement took a hit from profit-taking efforts. The industrial goods index was the worst hit of the five sectorial indices, dipping 4.40 per cent to 1,873.17 points. Market breadth was positive, with 26 gainers emerging against 11 losers. The all-share index closed lower by 532.45 points at 38,382.39 points while market capitalisation fell by N278.579 billion to N20.082 trillion. Year to date, the index is down by 4.69 per cent.…

Thursday, 18 March 2021 05:58

Italian court acquits Eni and Shell in Nigerian corruption case

A Milan court acquitted energy company Eni, its chief executive and Royal Dutch Shell on Wednesday in the oil industry’s biggest corruption case revolving around the $1.3 billion acquisition of a Nigerian oilfield a decade ago. The sentence, read out in court by judge Marco Tremolada, came more than three years after the trial first began and after 74 hearings. Tremolada said the companies and defendants had been acquitted as there was no case to answer. The Nigerian government said it was surprised and disappointed by the verdict and would consider whether to appeal once its lawyers had read the…

Thursday, 18 March 2021 05:49

Will work from home outlast virus? Ford’s move suggests yes

It’s a question occupying the minds of millions of employees who have worked from home the past year: Will they still be allowed to work remotely — at least some days — once the pandemic has faded? On Wednesday, one of America’s corporate titans, Ford Motor Co., supplied its own answer: It told about 30,000 of its employees worldwide who have worked from home that they can continue to do so indefinitely, with flexible hours approved by their managers. Their schedules will become a work-office “hybrid”: They’ll commute to work mainly for group meetings and projects best-suited for face-to-face interaction.…

Wednesday, 17 March 2021 06:03

Stagflation hits Nigeria as food prices, unemployment soar amid worsening insecurity

Nigerian inflation hit a four-year peak in February as food prices jumped more than 20%, heaping financial pressure on households already faced with a shrinking labour market and a stagnant economy at a time of mounting insecurity. Inflation, which has been in double digits since 2016, reached 17.33%, driven higher by the impact of a coronavirus epidemic that has also induced a slump in the price of oil, Nigeria’s main export, and weakened the naira currency. Tuesday’s inflation reading was the highest since the 17.78% touched in February 2017. The economy was in a slump then and is teetering on…

Wednesday, 17 March 2021 06:02

Foreign exchange inflow increased marginally Q4, 2020, fell drastically year-on-year - CBN

Aggregate foreign exchange inflow into the country in the fourth quarter of 2020 rose to $23.60bn from $21.46bn in the third quarter, figure from the Central Bank of Nigeria revealed on Tuesday. CBN stated in its report on ‘Foreign exchange flows through the economy’ for the fourth quarter that though there was an increase in foreign exchange flows through the economy in the review quarter compared with the preceding quarter due to the reopening of most economies including Nigeria, the second wave of Covid-19 hampered a return to the levels experienced in the corresponding quarter of 2019. Part of the…

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Wednesday, 17 March 2021 06:00

Telecom operators threatened to cut off bank customers from using USSD for transactions. This is what you’ll now pay for the service that used to be free

Nigerian regulators have set a flat fee for financial transactions done via mobile phones, replacing a billing system that caused disagreements between telecoms firms and lenders. Nigerian Communications Commission and Central Bank of Nigeria said on Tuesday they had agreed a flat fee of N6.98 per transaction to ensure financial inclusion and lower costs. Nigeria wants to open up its digital financial services sector, which will help millions of Nigerians who do not have bank accounts. But regulation has been caught up with intense lobbying from lenders seeking to protect their turf amid stiff competition and a rise in borrowers…

Wednesday, 17 March 2021 05:59

FG hires KPMG as adviser for infrastructure fund - Bloomberg

Nigeria’s central bank hired KPMG LLP as transaction adviser for its newly created infrastructure fund, according to a person familiar with the matter. The bank appointed KPMG after considering bids by firms including PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, Boston Consulting Group and McKinsey & Co., said the person, asking not to be identified because the information isn’t public yet. KPMG didn’t answer two calls seeking comment on Tuesday. President Muhammadu Buhari last month approved 1 trillion naira ($2.5 billion) of seed capital for the Infrastructure Corp. of Nigeria Ltd., which the central bank initiated last year. The fund has been established to raise…

Wednesday, 17 March 2021 05:53

EFCC gives bankers ultimatum to declare assets

Worried by the role banks are playing in keeping funds acquired illegitimately, Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), has given bankers till June 2021 to declare their assets in accordance with the Bank, Employees Declaration of Asset Act. Chairman of EFCC, Abdulrasheed Bawa, made this disclosure after a meeting with President Muhammed Buhari, where they reviewed what the commission has done so far towards eradication of financial crimes in Nigeria. Bawa, said he is working towards a new EFCC that would be different in terms of the way it investigates, prosecutes and the way it would generally execute its mandate.…

Tuesday, 16 March 2021 05:24

‘Nigeria’s jobless rate has more than quadrupled’ under Buhari - Bloomberg

Unemployment in Africa’s largest economy surged to the second highest on a global list of countries monitored by Bloomberg. The jobless rate in Nigeria rose to 33.3% in the three months through December, according to a report published by National Bureau of Statistics on its website Monday. That’s up from 27.1% in the second quarter of 2020, the last period for which the agency released labor-force statistics. A third of the 69.7 million-strong labor force in Africa’s most-populous nation either did nothing or worked for less than 20 hours a week, making them unemployed, according to the Nigerian definition. Another…

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