BUSINESS ROUNDUP: Foreign investments drop to $5.3bn; Nigeria spends N3.63trn on debt servicing in 2022; 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:

· Sterling Bank delists from NGX, transfers shares to Sterling Financial Holdings

· Foreign investments drop to $5.3bn, 27 states abandoned

· NNPC failed to account for N102bn crude oil lifted —Senate

· Nigeria spend N3.63trn on debt servicing in 2022

· CBN to remove bank accounts not linked to BVN

Summary:

Sterling Bank has delisted its shares from the Nigerian Exchange Limited (NGX), transferring the shares to Sterling Financial Holdings Company, which has now been listed on the stock market.

According to reports on Friday, Sterling Bank restructured into a Holding Company on Thursday and was delisted to become one of the subsidiaries of Sterling Financial Holdings Company.

Ripples Nigeria previously reported that the capital market authority suspended trading on Sterling Bank amid the restructuring process.

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) is set to remove bank accounts not linked to the Bank Verification Number (BVN) system from the financial system in an effort to reduce fraud.

Blaise Ijebor, the Director of the Risk Management Department and Chief Risk Officer at CBN, announced this at the Prembly Compliance Breakfast Dialogue on Thursday.

Ijebor explained that cybercriminals exploit three loopholes in the system, including the use of Tier-1 accounts, which can be opened with minimal documentation and are not linked to BVN.

The Nigerian government spent a whopping N3.63 trillion on servicing its external and domestic debts in 2022.

This is according to data obtained from the Debt Management Office (DMO) by Ripples Nigeria on Thursday.

Data shows that external debt service, which cost Nigeria $2.40 billion, amounted to N1.07 trillion using the exchange rate of N448.08, which Nigeria used to pay off the debt.

In 2016, the Auditor General released a report indicating that the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation Limited (NNPCL) was unable to account for crude oil deliveries worth over $376,655,589 (N102.6 billion) to the Warri and Kaduna refineries.

Read also:BUSINESS ROUNDUP: Unilever Nigeria to sell business; Afromedia accounts frozen after lawsuit; other stories

Recently, the Senate Committee on Public Accounts, led by Senator Matthew Urhoghide, reviewed the report and determined NNPCL must provide a detailed account of the crude oil lifted and supplied to the two refineries.

All 109 senators representing the 36 states of Nigeria unanimously agreed upon the findings of the committee on Wednesday, April 7, 2023.

The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on Tuesday said foreign investment in Nigeria decreased to $5.3 billion in 2022 compared to the $6.7 billion recorded in the previous year.

NBS disclosed this in its latest capital importation report published on Tuesday.

A breakdown of the report reveals that in the first quarter, Nigeria received N1.57 billion in foreign investment, followed by N1.53 billion in the second quarter and N1.15 billion in the third quarter.

On NSE ROUNDUP: Investors trade N10.050bn at Nigerian stock market

The Nigerian stock market reported equity investors parted with N10.050 billion in 16,155 deals for 1.054 billion shares this week.

This is below the 2.071 billion shares traded in 17,917 deals a week before, valued at N17.562 billion. The decline could be attributed to the Easter public holiday on Friday, which means trading this week was limited to four days.

The Financial Services Industry led the activity chart by measure of volume, as 630.378 million shares, valued at N5.438 billion, exchanged investors’ hands in 7,705 deals.

On the tech scene, Twitter, Accenture, VKAV, TikTok, Canva, Whatsapp, SpaceX, Microsoft, Baidu, Kakao, Duolingo, Cysiv MEA, were some of the names that made the headlines in the tech ecosystem this week.

Professional services giant, Accenture, has announced plans to cut 19,000 jobs or 2.5% of its global workforce.

Also, Microsoft-owned professional networking site, LinkedIn, is launching AI-powered writing recommendations feature to aid profile optimization and recruitment.

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