Nigeria’s Financial & Business Newspaper JSE dwarfs Nigerian Stock Exchange Monday, August 24 - Sunday, August 30, 2020 www.businessamlive.com 29 times, nears $1trn market cap MOSES OBAJEMU Exchange. rocco has a market capitalisation With a market capitalisation of of $52,084,378,318; the Egyptian ESPITE THE $34,509,132,315, the Nigerian Stock Stock Exchange ($36,078,945,194); SIZE OF THE Exchange is a distant fifth position, NSE ($34,509,132,315); and Nigerian trailing the Johannesburg Stock the Botswana Stock Exchange economy and Exchange, the Namibian Stock ($33,074,974,539). over a decade’s Exchange, the Casablanca Stock Others are the Nairobi Stock longD target by at least two Exchange and the Egyptian Stock Exchange with a market capitalisa- successive leaderships to Exchange in that order. tion of $18,902,672,283, followed business More curious is the fact that by the Ghana Stock Exchange raise market capitalisation to the $1trillion mark, the the Namibian Stock Exchange with a market capitalisation of Nigerian Stock Exchange comes second and has a market $10,294,461,397. The Bours de Tu- is not in the bracket of the capitalisation of $130,296,514,807. nis has a market capitalisation of top four stock exchanges in Namibia has a population of less $8,249,978,765. Africa. than 10 million people. The Namib- The South African economy is The Johannesbourg Stock ian bourse is four times bigger than touted as the most industrialised Exchange, the largest, with a the NSE. on the African continent, boasting total market capitalisation of Data from the African Stock of several thriving manufacturing, $988, 338,750,248, is 29 times Exchanges showed that the Casa- a.m.TOWARDS MORE EFFICIENT MARKETS bigger than the Nigeria Stock blanca Stock Exchange in Mo- Page 4 Power DisCos rip-off electricity consumers amid Covid-19 pains Summary Turn post-paid, unmetered customers to cash-cow What next for Nigeria, W/Africa Africa, a continent of 55 countries that can Calls mount to break DisCos’ monopoly boast of over $2.6 trillion in combined GDP, and having 54 countries signing up to the African Continental Free Trade Agreement Politically, militarily exposed persons own DisCos (AfCFTA) and just 33 of them ratifying ... Opposed Fashola who managed to bring in MAPs Page 5 PHILLIP ISAKPA country by turning the proverbial sword on owned entity or in their current state as FINANCE & INVESTMENT them through a barrage of estimated bills private sector controlled entities, have NIGERIA’S MONOPOLISTIC, YET un- for power which majority of them say they hidden under the veil of unavailability of Why banks reduce int’l spending controllable, but powerfully-connected did not consume. pay-as-you-consume electricity meters to The most important thing to note is that electricity distribution companies (DisCos) For decades, power companies, whether unleash unwarranted charges on hapless Nigeria’s foreign exchange reserve is low are piling misery on consumers across the in the old guise of being a fully government- Page 2 and banks are not spared the effects of the low circulation of forex. It now looks like the banks themselves are now making a shift towards managing their... Page 11 INSURANCE BUSINESS 2.033bn new insurance shares CONSOLIDATED HALLMARK INSUR- ANCE PLC plans to raise additional funds from the capital market, the company has disclosed in a public statement it made avail- able on the matter. In a statement signed by... Page 14 TECHNOLOGY & INNOVATION N710bn ATM investment deficit IN THE FINANCIAL INCLUSION report of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), the deployment of automated teller machines (ATMs) across the country had been identi- fied as imperative to giving people access to cash anywhere for financial... Page 30 R-L: Godwin Obaseki, candidate of the PDP and governor of Edo State; HRH Anthony Ehizojie Abumere II, Onogie of Ekpoma; and Philip COMPANY & BUSINESS Shaibu, deputy governor of Edo State, during a courtesy visit to the traditional ruler in Esan West Local Government Area of the state at the weekend ITMB accesses N2.7bn facility THE DEVELOPMENT BANK OF NIGERIA (DBN) has disbursed the sum of N2.7 billion MONDAY INTERVIEW EXECUTIVE KNOWLEDGE SERIES on-lending facility to Infinity Trust Bortgage How to Become a Star in a Strange Land Bank. ICT is new oil. Govt should bring up policies The facility, according to the mortgage bank, MY NAME IS MUYIWA ABDUL-RAZAQ IT HELPS IF YOU’RE A GENERALIST with is in line with the bank’s vision of... OGUNGBOYE, managing director and no ego. founder of eStream Networks. eStream was In 1991, a Beijing actor named Li Lianjie Page 22 founded 15 years ago by myself and a senior was given the starring role in a marquee Hong friend of mine. We started out as a satellite Kong film. Once Upon a Time in China, a bi- For subscription call: communication company providing the tra- opic of a legendary Chinese kung fu master, 07039371360 ditional V-SAT, specifically to... ushered in a golden age of kung fu movies in Page 26 Hong Kong, then the... Page 15 N250 News: 2 & 4 Comment: 6 Finance & Investment: 10 Technology: 26 Company & Business: 25 No 133 BUSINESS A.M. MONDAY, AUGUST 24 - SUNDAY, AUGUST 30, 2020 2 NEWS Power DisCos rip-off... Page 1 individuals, households and busi- ness entities. Now, amid the coronavirus pandemic when many small and medium scale businesses are forced to close down their places of operations, it has come to light that across Lagos, controlled by Ikeja Electrics and Eko Elec- tricity Distribution Company, an avalanche of complaints is spreading across the state, com- ing from small business owners who feel hard done by that they have continued to receive outra- geous estimated bills even when they had their business premises locked as they observed Covid-19 lockdown. “I went to check on the prem- ises I operate from, to just see the state of things, only to find that Ikeja Electric brought an estimat- ed monthly bill of over N12,000 for a period that the place had been under lock,” said Kerechi Nkere, who runs a bar that lockdown Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu (3rd right) of Lagos State; Obafemi Hamzat (2nd left), deputy governor; Solape Hammond (left), special adviser to forced her to close for over three the governor on SDG & Lagos Global; Hakeem Fahm (2nd right), commissioner, Ministry of Science and Technology; and Olatubosun Alake (right), months. special adviser to the governor on innovation and technology, in a group photograph with grant beneficiaries at the Lagos State Science Research Across the country the story is and Innovation Council (LASRIC) grant award ceremony, recently. not different. Our correspondents in Owerri, Port Harcourt, Jos, Abuja Kano, relay tales of woes by non-metered consumers who say they feel punished by the lack of transparency in the business COVID-19 pressures cost Volkswagen, Ford, Toyota, conducted by DisCos, who seem determined to cheat them out GM, Daimler $63bn market cap in 8 months of pocket through what has now become a weapon – estimated Charles Abuede Motor Corp lost a combined $33.1 On the other hand, Toyota Mo- During the second quarter of the billing. billion in market capitalisation tor Corp, the second-largest motor year, Daimler’s auto total sales by But analysts say the problem is THE WORLD’S Volkswagen, the world’s largest manufacturer in the world, lost unit fell by 34 per cent to 541,000 automaker, managed to reduce the $15.4 billion in market cap to the passenger cars and commercial ve- much deeper than just the DisCos NEWS TOP FIVE AUTOMO- wanting to cheat consumers. They BILE manufacturing effects brought about by the coro- COVID-19 pandemic, falling from hicles with the company witnessing say it is systemic and that the Dis- companies, Volkswa- navirus crisis during the first six $196.9 billion as at December 2019 a drop in revenue by 29 per cent to Cos are latching on the monopoly gen Group, Ford Mo- months of 2020, but the financial to $181.5 billion eight months later. €30.2 billion at the end of June. they enjoy and the support of their tors, Toyota Motor Corporation, report of the group shows that sales The company’s financials show In a similar development, the powerful political and military ex- Daimler AG and General Motors revenue fell by 23.2 per cent since that the firm recorded the small- total market capitalisation of Ford posed owners to deal a bad hand saw $63 billion peel off their total January to reach €96.1 billion at est quarterly profit in nine years and General Motors, the two lead- to hapless consumers. market capitalisation between De- the end of June, this year. Until the as the pandemic halved its global ing U.S. manufacturers on the list, A financial expert who has cember 2019 and the third week of close of the second quarter, Volk- car sales. By the end of the second declined by $20.8 billion since the been involved in the power sec- August, 2020 as a result of mount- swagen also reported a significant quarter, Toyota’s operating profit outbreak of the COVID-19. Accord- tor told Business A.M. that the ing pressures from the coronavirus year-on-year decline in its deliver- plunged by 98 per cent to $131.73 ing to statistics, Ford’s market cap matter is beyond the simple fight (COVID-19) pandemic, an analysis ies by 27.4 per cent to 3.9 million million. plunged by $10.4 billion in eight between a service provider and a of their stock performances has vehicles.