BUSINESS ROUNDUP: Airline operators cancel more flights as fuel scarcity bites; MultiChoice succumbs to FIRS tax demand; Other stories

Hello, and welcome to Business Roundup this week. Here, we bring you highlights of events that happened during the week -from the capital market to the mainstream business activities, while not forgetting the tech/economy build up.

Here are the Headlines:

• U.S company opens $100m diaper factory in Ikorodu
• Airline operators cancel more flights as fuel scarcity continues
• MultiChoice succumbs to FIRS tax demand
• Bitcoin displaces gold, stock market as investors’ preferred war asset

Summary:

MultiChoice Nigeria has succumbed to the demands of the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) to audit its company accounts over tax-related issues that has led to multiple court cases.

The cable tv company had filed cases at a court and with the Tax Appeal Tribunal (TAT) against the FIRS, in a bid to prevent the assessment on their adherence to tax obligations in Nigeria.

This follows the appointment of banks in July 2021 to recover N1.82 trillion tax bills reportedly owed by the parent company of DSTV, which was accused of tax evasion. MultiChoice was also alleged not to have paid $342 million value-added tax (VAT).

Flight delays and cancellations among airlines in Nigeria continues unabated, as the price of aviation fuel increased further due to scarcity.

Last year the fuel moved between N230 and N250 per litre across different states in the country.

On Wednesday reports have it that the price of a litre of Jet fuel in Lagos was N590 while in Abuja and Port Harcourt the product sold at N599. In Kano, the product went for N625.

Gold is usually the go-to asset for investors during a war, with stock market losing its appeal, but bitcoin seems to be positioning itself as best option to the investing community.

Since Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022, bitcoin has appreciated 11.36%, while Gold price (oz) surged 7.65% during the same period, reflecting investors’ movement amid the war.

In the last 37-days, bitcoin price has climbed from $37,278.57, adding $4,235.06 to its market price to sell at $41,513.63, with Gold oz on sale for $2,055.09, as at the time of filing this report, up from $1908.90.

Read also: BUSINESS ROUNDUP: Petrol sells at N330 per litre; NDIC to refund depositors of 23 distressed banks; Other stories

A United States’ brands, Kimberly Clark has opened a $100 Million factory in Ikorodu a Lagos suburb amid Nigeria’s rising population.

An excited U.S. Consul General Claire Pierangelo who made the announcement revealed that the factory would create over 1,000 direct and 5,000 indirect jobs.

She described the factory as a state-of-the-art diaper manufacturing facility with huge potential to scale over the next 3-5 years of operation.

On NSE ROUNDUP: Investors trade N4.47bn worth of shares in 8 hours

The Nigerian capital market continued its recovery from the bearish run with a 0.16 percent rise in equity capitalization at the close of trading on Thursday.

The equity capitalisation rose by N41.4 billion from N25.48 trillion to N25.52 trillion today.

Also, the All-Share Index rose by 76.89 basis points to close at 47,363.98 compared to 47,287.09 reported on Wednesday.

Investors traded 261.55 million shares valued at N4.47 billion in 4,672 deals on Thursday.

On the tech scene, Antler, Naqla, AltSchool, Tactic, Sary, 100ms, Klump and Yep! were some of the names that made the headlines this week.

Klump, Nigeria’s buy now pay later (BNPL) startup, during the week, secured a US$780,000 pre-seed funding round.

Also, Antler, an early-stage investor, secured US$13.5 million to continue to support early-stage tech startups in East Africa.

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