BUSINESS ROUNDUP: Nigerians to pay more to browse internet; NNPC declares N674bn profit; and 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:

· Access Bank to acquire $300m worth Angolan firm, Finibanco

· Nigerians to pay more to browse internet, as MTN, airtel increase data price

· NNPC declares N674bn profit

· NNPC vows to recover stolen crude oil

· Kogi govt moves to take over Obajana Cement factory from Dangote

Summary:

Nigerian telecommunication companies, during the week, announced an increase in prices for their internet data services by about 10 percent.

The increase was announced by MTN(@MTN180) and Airtel (@AirtelNigeria) on their verified Twitter pages on Saturday evening.

The recent 10 percent hike is still less than the 40 percent increase in the cost of calls, SMS, and data initially proposed by telecommunication companies under the aegis of the Association of Licensed Telecommunication Operators of Nigeria.

The Group General Manager, National Petroleum Investment Management Services (NAPIMS) of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited, Bala Wunti, said works are ongoing to recover missing crude oil barrels.

Wunti made this known in a Twitter post after he, alongside the NNPC Limited Group Managing Director, Mele Kyari, recently visited the Trans Escravos Pipeline which connects to the illegal four-kilometer pipeline discovered at Forcados, in Delta State.

While the discovery of the illegal pipeline hasn’t led to arrest of any suspect, Wunti said the missing crude oil barrels will be brought back. This is despite the pipeline has been in operation for the past nine years.

Kogi state government has commenced the process of recovering the cement plant in Obajana from Dangote Industries Limited.

The Dangote Cement plant in Obajana, Nigeria, is the largest cement production facility in Africa, producing up to 30,000 tons daily.

Should the Kogi government succeed, Dangote could watch his fortune plummet further from the already N155.59bn ($359m) already lost in 2022, according to data from Bloomberg billionaire index as at Friday, October 7.

Read also:BUSINESS ROUNDUP: Nigerians borrow to survive hard times. Fraudsters target GTBank accounts… Other stories

Access Bank has signed an agreement to acquire 51% majority shareholding in Finibanco Angola S.A from Montepio Holding SGPS S.A, the parent company, Access Holdings Plc revealed on Tuesday.

The Nigerian commercial bank purchased existing shares owned by Montepio, the holding company for Banco Montepio, a Portuguese commercial bank.

This will increase the number of branches under Access Bank, which has been ranked as the largest commercial bank in Africa by number of customers. Finibanco have over 20 branches, with a total assets worth $300 million.

The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) Limited has declared a profit of N674billion for 2021.

The NNPC Group Managing Director, Melee Kyari, disclosed this in a statement on the company’s Twitter handle on Tuesday.

He said the NNPC Board has approved the audited financial statements for 2021.

On NSE ROUND UP: Nigerian capital market’s investment hits N25.74tr as Geregu, Livestock lead gainers’ list

The equity capitalization in the Nigerian capital market closed at N25.74 trillion on Thursday.

Similarly, the bourse ended today’s trading with the All-Share Index settling at 47,260.89.

Investors traded 140.67 million shares valued at N2.36 billion in 4,371 deals on Thursday.

On the tech scene, Google, Spleet, Purple Elephant, Acathia Capital, Swvl, Glamera, KCD, Gourmey, Havaic, Algebra Ventures, CardoO, Talk360 were some of the names that made the headlines in the tech ecosystem this week.

A Nigerian proptech startup, Spleet, has announced securing a $2.6 million seed round led by MaC Venture Capital.

Also, during the week, Google announced plans to boost cloud capabilities for its customers and partners in Africa with the first African cloud region in South Africa.

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