Pham Hong Hai-CEO-HSBC Vietnam

Encouraging corporate issuance on primary and alternative exchanges

With issuance on the primary market remaining far below the levels seen during the heydays of the mid2000s, attracting new supply will be key if the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) is to meet its goal of a $1trn market capitalisation by 2016 – up from N12.14trn ($74.05bn) in early April 2015. NSE management has mentioned some 500 firms in which it sees potential for listing, despite modest results in recent years. Equity raising has taken the form of secondary rights issues by already listed firms, as well as listing by introduction rather than through initial public offerings (IPOs). Nonetheless, both the regulator and the exchange

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Cement

The Company  Lafarge Africa is a 73%-owned subsidiary of France’s Lafarge SA and the result of a mid-2014 merger of Lafarge Wapco Cement (Wapco) with Lafarge South Africa Holdings, United Cement Company of Nigeria (Unicem), Ashaka Cement and Atlas Cement Company. The transaction, completed in September 2014, consolidated the parent company’s African assets, thereby raising the new entity’s market capitalisation to N521.9bn ($3.2bn) on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) and bringing its total cement manufacturing capacity to 12m tonnes per annum (tpa). The largest of these, Wapco, has its production base in Nigeria’s south-western Ogun State and is the country’s second-largest manufacturer of cement, with

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Nestlé Nigeria: Food and beverages

The Company  Nestlé Nigeria is a subsidiary of Nestlé Group, one of the world’s largest food and beverage companies, which established a presence in Nigeria in 1961 and was listed on the Nigerian Stock Exchange in 1978. The company is 63.75% owned by Ghanabased Nestlé Central & West Africa. Since entering Nigeria, Nestlé has grown to become one of the country’s leading brands in food and beverages. In the marketplace, its products include infant cereals (Nutrend, Cerelac, Nan), family cereals (Golden Morn), beverage drinks (Milo, Nescafé, Nido), confectionary ( Chocomilo), bouillon (Maggi) and table water (Pure Life). Financial Performance  In Q2 2014, Nestlé Nigeria’s revenue

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Nhon Luc Ly-CEO-AIA Myanmar; Son Nguyen-Country President-Chubb Life Insurance Myanmar; Daw Zarchi Tin-CEO

Emergence of microinsurance and takaful to boost market penetration

Bolstered by the country’s large population and emerging middle class, the growth of Nigeria’s insurance sector appears inevitable with time – especially given the current, extremely limited level of insurance spending. Regulators are pursuing several reforms they hope will speed up the process, and the National Insurance Commission (NAICOM) has initiated changes and issued guidelines for new methods of insurance to that effect. Aside from addressing regulatory concerns and compliance, the reforms focus on encouraging consumers to expand their coverage beyond legally mandated policy lines. New regulations on microinsurance, which came into force in early 2014, led to rapid growth in the segment. Takaful, or

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Daouda Coulibaly-Managing Director-Société Ivoirienne de Banque

Over-the-counter trading and alternative exchanges offer opportunities for liquidity growth in Nigeria

The last year has seen the launch of several new market platforms in Nigeria, ranging from an alternative board on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) dedicated to high-growth small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to platforms for trading over-the-counter (OTC) equities and fixed-income securities. The new tools have seen varying levels of success, with the fixedincome OTC platform having garnered the most liquidity and interest by far. However, the diversification of trading platforms is not a zero-sum game, and the NSE actively supports each of the

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Oil and gas

The Company Oando was listed on the Nigerian Stock Exchange in February 1992 and in 2005 became the first African company to have a cross-border inward listing on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange. In 2012 its upstream business, Oando Energy Resources, became the first indigenously Nigerian firm to be listed on Canada’s Toronto Stock Exchange. The company’s business operations are organised into six divisions: in the upstream sector, exploration and production, and energy services; in the midstream sector, gas and power; and in the downstream sector, marketing, supply and trading, and terminals and logistics. By adding gas and power distribution, international supply, trading and energy services

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Transcorp Hotels: Hospitality

Uncategorized

The Company  Transcorp Hotels, formerly Transnational Hotels and Tourism Services, is the hospitality subsidiary of Transnational Corporation of Nigeria (Transcorp), which holds a 79% stake in the company following the successful conclusion of an initial public offering (IPO) in October 2014 and subsequent listing on the Nigerian Stock Exchange, which reduced Transcorp’s stake from 88%. The rest is owned by the federal government of Nigeria (11%) and individual shareholders (10%). Transcorp Hotels currently owns two hotels. The first, Transcorp Hilton Abuja, is one of Nigeria’s leading hotels, with 670 rooms (427 standard, 116 deluxe and 127 executive suites) as well as 24 meeting rooms, one

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Chaim Zach-Managing Director and CEO-Agric International Technology and Trade; Kabiru Rabiu-Group Executive Director-BUA Group; and Aliyu Abbati Abdulhameed-Managing Director

The oil and gas landscape evolves for local and international producers

The landscape of onshore exploration and production (E&P) joint ventures has shifted considerably in recent years. Nigeria and Angola, the two most mature oil players in Africa, have witnessed the most mergers and acquisitions (M&A) on the continent of late, according to Standard Chartered. With some 2.2bn barrels of oil equivalent (boe) sold by international oil companies (IOCs) to indigenous players in the four years to 2014, local independents are now taking on an even larger role in production, accounting for 10% of aggregate output. Some forecasts see this figure reaching 25% in the next five years. As IOCs have managed their portfolios more actively

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Azzan Al Busaidi-CEO-Public Authority for Investment Promotion and Export Development (Ithraa)

Demand for refined petroleum products pushes capacity expansion in Nigeria’s energy sector

Given the scale of demand for petroleum products in both Nigeria and the broader ECOWAS region, the country stands to gain significant export revenues if it increases downstream production. Nigeria’s four refineries, though they raised their capacity utilisation rate somewhat in 2014, remain low at around the 30% mark overall, despite being allocated their full capacity of 445,000 barrels per day (bpd) in crude. “The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) allocations of crude to the refineries are based on installed capacity, not operational throughput,” Idris Yusuf, head of refineries at the NNPC, told OBG. Were they to run at 80% of installed capacity, the output

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Emmanuel Macron-President of France

New projects under way in Nigeria to increase gas production, ease transmission and meet demand using more local resources

With one of the world’s most comprehensive privatisation efforts taking place in Nigeria’s electricity sector, the problem of ensuring adequate natural gas supply for power generation has taken centre stage. Although natural gas production has steadily increased in recent years in line with domestic supply obligations and the broad road map of the Gas Master Plan (GMP), development of the required gas pipeline infrastructure in a country where it has traditionally been fragmented between regions has lagged far behind. Further challenges have been precipitated by

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