22—Vanguard, FRIDAY, MARCH 13, 2015
Afreximbank supports factoring activities in African firms with $48m
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VISIT: From left: Managing Director, FMDQ OTC Plc, Mr. Bola Onadele.Koko; President, Chartered Institute of Stockbrokers, Mr. Albert Okumagba; Corporate Communications, FMDQ OTC Plc, Kaodi Ugoji; 2nd Vice President, CIS, Mr. Dapo Adekoje; and Council member/Chairman, CPD, CIS, Mr. Oye Oyeniyi, during CIS courtesy visit to FMDQ OTC Plc in Lagos.
Investors gain N34.9bn as NSE market capitalisation hits N10.3trn By Peter Egwuatu
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quities trading on the floor of Nigerian Stock Exchange, NSE ended in the positive territory, yesterday as investors gained N34.915 billion. The market capitalisation which represents the total value of equities traded on the exchange appreciated by 0.34 per cent to close at N10.335 trillion from N10.300 trillion. In the same vein, another stock market performance indicator, the All Share Index went up by 0.43 per cent to close at 30,973.80 from 30,869.17 points. The total value of stock traded increased by 13.17 per cent from ¦ 3.855 billion to ¦ 4.362 billion in 4,252 deals. The Financial Services sector led the activity chart with 207.645 million shares exchanged for ¦ 1.888 billion. Conglomerates came next with 17.999 million shares traded for ¦ 0.057 billion, The Banking sub sector led activity chart gaining 1.66 per cent, followed by Industrial stock which appreciated by 0.10 per cent. Meanwhile, the Consumer Goods declined by 0.47 per cent and continued to come under selling pressure and closed the day lower. Gains recorded by First Bank Nigeria Holding, FBNH , Sterling Bank , ETI, GT Bank and Zenith Bank accounted for the good performance of the banking stocks. Specifically, FBHN gained 4.94 per cent to close at N8.93, followed by Sterling Bank which appreciated by 3.83 per cent to close at N2.44. ETI appreciated by 3.77 to close at N18.99, followed by GT Bank which edged up by 3.18 per
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cent to close a N25.00) and Zenith bank up by 1.60 per cent to close at N21.00. Other gainers include: Cutix (8.57 per cent) which closed at N1.52 and Dangcem (+0.29 per cent to close at N154.00 were the value drivers in the Industrial sector. Losses seen on Unilever was 2.32 per cent to close at N34.05), followed by PZ which dropped by 1.57 per cent to close at N27.00. Guinness declined by 1.53 per cent to close at N126.61. Honeywell flour Mills declined by 0.38 per cent to close at N2.65 followed by NASCON which dipped by 0.15 per cent to
close at N6.59 and Nigerian Breweries , NB dropped by 0.04 per cent to close at N140.00. The losses recorded by the equities caused the downtrend of the Consumer Goods sub sector. A few notable trades of the day were the transactions consummated on; GT bank worth N693 million ($3.50 million), NB: N670 million ($3.38 m), Zenith bank: N549 million ($2.77 m), FBNH: N307 million ($1.55 m) and UBA: N117 million ($592k). An off-market cross deal of 82.8 million units of Oando Plc was consumated at N18.00.
he African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) says it has provided lines of credit amounting to $48 million to African factoring companies in the last two years. This is contained in a statement credited to Dr Benedict Oramah, Afreximbank’s Executive Vice President in charge of Business Development and Corporate Banking, on Thursday in Lagos. factoring is not a loan but a cash-management tool of choice for many companies, and is one of the oldest forms of business financing. Oramah, who spoke at a symposium on Factoring in Africa in Cairo, was quoted as saying that the support was to give liquidity and payment risk protection in the companies’ factoring activities. The two-day symposium was organised by the Egyptian Factoring Association, the Financial Services Institute and the International Factors Group. According to him, the amount comprised $23 million granted to factors located in Mauritania and $25 million to several others based in Senegal. He announced that Afreximbank currently had factoring lines totalling $50 million under assessment for institutions in Burkina Faso, Kenya, Egypt, Botswana, Rwanda, and Zimbabwe. Oramah said that
Afreximbank had supported the development of factoring in Africa through educational events and fostering the creation of facilitative infrastructure. He said that Afreximbank would soon introduce a cobranded factoring development product called AfriFactor, to reduce costs incurred by African factors in setting up factoring business platforms. “Besides, AfriFactor will address challenges around the lack of expertise in backoffice and receivables management. “It will provide advisory services to African financial institutions seeking to commence or enhance their factoring businesses, and provide support in such areas as establishing factoring businesses, information technology and operations platforms,” he said. NAN had reported that Afreximbank is a foremost Pan-African multilateral financial institution devoted to financing and promoting intraand extra-African trade. Oramah added that Afreximbank was also working with the African Development Bank’s Thematic Fund for Private Sector Assistance (FAPA) to support factoring companies in Africa. According to him, the partnership uses FAPA grants that target innovative programmes for small and micro-scale enterprises.
Stanbic IBTC takes SME capacity building initiative to Ibadan By Nkiruka Nnorom
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The total value of stock traded increased by 13.17 per cent from ¦ 3.855 billion to ¦ 4.362 billion in 4,252 deals
HE nationwide effort by Stanbic IBTC Bank, a member of the Stanbic IBTC Holdings Plc, to help build a vibrant small and medium scale enterprises sector in Nigeria was taken to Ibadan, the Oyo State capital, recently where over 500 participants converged at the Ibadan Civic Centre for the one-day capacity building workshop. A similar session was held in Lagos on February 11-12, while others are planned for Port Harcourt, Aba, Abuja and Kano, among other cities spread across the six geo-political zones in the country. At the workshop, the bank reiterated that the key objective of the workshop is to equip its clients operating in the Small and Medium Scale Enterprises (SMEs) sub-sector with financial, marketing and management skills that they can readily deploy to nurture and grow their businesses. “The SME sector is pivotal to the economic growth and development of any nation and Nigeria is no exception, which is why the seminar was conceived to avail SME operators exposure to modern and innovative marketing, financial and management skills that are useful to their businesses and which will help
them to attract the necessary funding for growth,” Executive Director, Personal and Business Banking, Stanbic IBTC Bank, Obinnia Abajue, said. Abajue, who was represented by the Regional Head, SME, Stanbic IBTC Bank, Mr. Tayo Adediran, stated that Stanbic IBTC Bank, backed by the rich heritage and know-how of the Standard Bank Group, is committed to building a strong SME base in Nigeria and one of the ways it hopes to achieve this is by empowering operators with the right business skills and adequate funding. “Stanbic IBTC Bank has a rich pedigree of building capacity for SMEs and providing much-needed support in terms of funding and skills acquisition because we understand the important linkages provided by SMEs to industries and employment generation. This seminar is one of several ways the bank continues to build capacity in the SME sector,” Abajue said. Chief Executive Officer, West Atlantic Resource & Equity House Ltd, Adegboyega Adebajo, who made presentations on Economic Outlook for 2015 and Business Planning, noted that developments in the global economy, notably those emanating from America, Europe and Emerging Asia, impact the local economy, with small and medium enterprises also affected.