BUSINESS ROUNDUP: Lafarge opens bag manufacturing plant; MTN Nigeria faces N1.48bn lawsuits; 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:

· Lafarge opens bag manufacturing plant in Ewekoro

· MTN Nigeria faces N1.48bn lawsuits over electrocution, others

· CBN fines Sterling Bank N218m for breaching nine rules

· Coinbase ends loan option for Bitcoin traders

· Nestle’s export revenue falls by N1.76bn

Summary:

Sub-Saharan Africa building solutions company, Lafarge Africa Plc, has opened a cement bag manufacturing plant at its Cement Plant in Ewekoro, Ogun State.

The development comes as part of its commitment to continuously drive excellence and innovation in the manufacturing industry as an innovative and sustainable building solutions company.

Khaled El Dokani, Country Chief Executive Officer, Lafarge Africa Plc, who confirmed the development during the week, noted that the new plant features cutting edge and state of the art machinery and equipment, and is expected to help Lafarge reinforce availability as it looks to handle large scale production of bags in a safe environment.

Nestle Nigeria’s revenue from exported products fell by N1.76 billion or 87.3 per cent between January to March 2023, Ripples Nigeria has learnt.

The company is the producer of beverage goods; Milo, Chocomilo, Nescafe, Milo ready-to-drink (RTD) and Nestlé Pure Life, as well as food products; Maggi, Cerelac, Nan, Lactogen and Golden Morn.

Ripples Nigeria gathered that these products earned N256.60 million from export in the first quarter (Q1) of this year, failing to surpass the N2.02 billion generated from export in the same period in 2022.

Coinbase, a U.S.-based cryptocurrency exchange, has informed crypto traders that they would be unable to obtain loans from the exchange starting from May 10, 2023.

The cryptocurrency exchange offers a service known as “Coinbase Borrow”, that allows customers to use 30 per cent of their Bitcoin holdings to borrow about $1 million, which comes with interest.

READ ALSO:BUSINESS ROUNDUP: GTB’s Agbaje is Nigeria’s highest-paid bank CEO in 2022. Cash shortages in Q1 to weaken Nigeria’s growth; other stories

Bitcoin traders got the update on Coinbase’s loan option via email on Wednesday. It was disclosed that the decision was driven by regulators’ scrutiny.

Sterling Bank was fined N218 million for breaching nine regulations of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), the company’s annual financial statement for the period of 2022, released on Wednesday, revealed.

CBN fined Sterling Bank N62 million as payment for an infraction by defaulting bank under Nigeria Electricity Market Stabilization Facility (NEMSF).

The financial regulator also charged Sterling Bank N56 million for the late rendition of regulatory returns and N52 million fine for the risk-based supervisory report 2019 – 2020.

MTN Nigeria is battling with several lawsuits that have amounted to legal claims of over N1.48 billion, the company’s first quarter (Q1) financial result for 2023 disclosed.

Part of the N1.48 billion lawsuit is a N200 million case filed against MTN Nigeria after the company’s cable allegedly electrocuted a 12-year-old girl, Hamsatu Abdullahi, in Yobe State.

The N200 million was awarded to the 12-year-old girl by a high court in Damaturu, the capital of Yobe State, due to the injuries she sustained from the electrocution which led to both her hands and one of her legs being amputated.

On NSE ROUNDUP: NGX: Access Corp, UBA lead trading as market cap rises by N95bn

The equity capitalization in the Nigerian capital market rose to N28.56 trillion at the close of trading on Friday.

The figure represents 0.33 percent or N95.05 billion growth over the N28.47 trillion reported on Thursday.

Also, the All-Share Index appreciated by 174.56 basis points to close at 52,465.31, up from 52,290.75 posted by the bourse the previous day.

Investors traded 482.59 million shares worth N5.64 billion in 5,298 deals on Friday.

On the tech scene, Towntalk, Zone, Shopify, ATS London, Moody, Nestcoin, NITDA, Nomba, Treepz, An Nisa, IBM, Eighty6, were some of the names that made the headlines in the tech ecosystem this week.

Nigeria’s Towntalk has announced plans to invest in data infrastructure as the world seeks to manage rusk and protect data.

Also, in the latest rating made by Financial Times, Zone, a blockchain network for payments, has been named Africa’s Fastest Growing Blockchain Company in 2023.

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