BUSINESS ROUNDUP: CBN loans to gulp N1.2trn of 2023 budget; Chicken Republic bans old naira notes; other stories

Hello, and welcome to the 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:

· CBN loans to gulp N1.2trn of 2023 budget

· Banks meet Reps committee, counter CBN on new Naira notes

· Moghalu cautions CBN against cashless policy

· Chicken Republic bans old naira notes days before CBN deadline

· Unilever loses 64.51% revenue, investors part ways with firm

Summary:

The former Deputy Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Kingsley Moghalu, has waded into debates regarding the implications of the recent Naira redesign policy and cash withdrawal limit by the apex financial institution in the country.

Further to the launch of the redesigned naira notes, the CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele, had hitherto limited weekly cash withdrawals over the counter to N100,000 for individuals and N500,000 for organisations regardless of their size.

The apex financial institution later increased its weekly cash withdrawal limits set for individuals and corporate organisations to N500,000 and N5 million, respectively, following concerns from stakeholders and Nigerians.

Commercial Banks on Friday countered claims by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) on the availability of the new Naira notes.

The banks defended their position on the matter when they appeared before the House of Representatives ad hoc committee investigating the scarcity of the new notes and the January 31 deadline given by the apex bank for the withdrawal of the old notes from the circulation.

Hadiza Ambursa, an official of Access Bank who represented the bank’s managing director, said they only got 10 percent of the money deposited with the CBN.

The Federal Government has earmarked over N1.2 trillion to service the loans it got from the Central Bank of Nigeria through the Ways and Means Advances in 2023.

The details were contained in the 2023 fiscal framework document obtained by Ripples Nigeria.

Read also:BUSINESS ROUNDUP: Oil companies lose N803bn from sabotaged pipelines; Nigeria’s inflation rate hits 21.34%; other stories

Ways and Means Advances is a loan facility used by the central bank to finance the government in periods of temporary budget shortfalls subject to limits imposed by law.

Nigerian restaurant firm, Chicken Republic, has announced that the use of the old naira notes has been banned from its fast-food chains ahead of the deadline.

In a notice to customers seen by Ripples Nigeria, it was learnt that Chicken Republic stopped accepting the old naira notes starting from January 25.

This is seven days before the deadline of January 31, 2023, set by the financial regulator of the country, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).

Unilever lost 64.51 per cent of its revenue to expenses in 2022, as production cost grew by 14.10 per cent during the same period in review.

According to the year-end financial statement 2022 obtained by Ripples Nigeria, Unilever reported N88.72 billion turnover between January to December last year.

The revenue increased by 25.80 per cent within 12 months when compared to the N70.52 billion generated by the company in 2021.

On NSE ROUNDUP: Access Holdings, International Breweries, others lose N51.7bn to investors’ apathy

The Nigerian capital market slumped in equity valuation by 0.18 percent at the close of trading on Friday.

This represented a dip in the market capitalization by N51.78 billion from N28.73 trillion to N28.68 trillion after five hours of trading today.

Similarly, the All-Share Index dropped by 95.08 basis points to close at 52,657.88, down from 52,752.96 achieved by the bourse on Thursday.

Investors traded 171.10 million shares valued at N2.34 trillion in 3,599 deals on Friday.

This surpassed the 139.68 million shares worth N2.02 billion traded by shareholders in 3,549 deals the previous day.

On the tech scene, Innov8 Group, Chrome, IBM, Meta, Dell, SAP, Twitter, NITDA, Facebook, AFEX were some of the names that made the headlines in the tech ecosystem this week.

After two years, Meta has considered reinstating former president Donald Trump’s Facebook and Instagram accounts.

Also, a Nigerian commodity exchange company, AFEX, has expanded its footprint into Uganda.

Join the conversation

Opinions

Support Ripples Nigeria, hold up solutions journalism

Balanced, fearless journalism driven by data comes at huge financial costs.

As a media platform, we hold leadership accountable and will not trade the right to press freedom and free speech for a piece of cake.

If you like what we do, and are ready to uphold solutions journalism, kindly donate to the Ripples Nigeria cause.

Your support would help to ensure that citizens and institutions continue to have free access to credible and reliable information for societal development.

Donate Now