Daily Watch – Alcohol just got more expensive, IPO market set for lift off
4th June 2018
- An excise duty recently approved for alcoholic beverages and tobacco will take effect today. President Buhari had approved the amendment to the excise duty rates in March. The amendment came after the Finance Minister, Kemi Adeosun, had written to the President seeking approval for the excise review. Adeosun had said the reviews would be from 2018 to 2020 and was to raise the government’s fiscal revenues. Under the new rates for tobacco, in addition to the 20 percent ad-valorem rate, each stick of cigarette will attract a ₦1 specific rate. By 2019, tobacco will attract a ₦2 specific rate per stick while it will attract ₦2.90 kobo specific rate per stick by 2020. Under the review, beer and stout will attract 0.30k per centilitre in 2018 and 0.35k per cl each in 2019 and 2020. Wines will attract a ₦1.25k per cl in 2018 and a ₦1.50k per cl each in 2019 and 2020; while spirits get a ₦1.50k per cl charge in 2018, ₦1.75k per cl in 2019 and ₦2 per cl in 2020.
- NUPENG has issued a 21-day ultimatum to employers in the oil and gas industry to address the poor welfare of workers. Williams Akporeha, NUPENG President, issued the ultimatum at a news conference in Lagos on Sunday while complaining about the alleged suffering workers are subjected to by their employers. Akporeha said over 500 union members had not been paid after working for some international oil companies. Aside from the non-payment of salaries, he said the companies had continuously ill-treated the workers who were casuals. He also said that oil and gas companies were hostile to unionism, left little room for collective bargaining and negotiation and not paying end-of-contract benefits.
- More companies are lining up to list on the NSE, kick-starting Nigeria’s IPO market after a long drought. Reuters quotes sources familiar with the matter as saying that two companies – Skyway Aviation Handling Company and Nigerian Reinsurance Corporation – were preparing for initial public offerings this year, while Singapore-owned Indorama Eleme Petrochemicals Ltd planned a public float in Lagos next year. They follow on the heels of South Africa’s MTN which has said it plans to list its Nigerian unit this year but has not set a date. IPOs dried up in Nigeria after a 2008 crash, aggravated by the global financial crisis, wiped more than 60 percent off the stock market’s capitalisation. The benchmark share index has since recovered, gaining 42 percent last year but IPOs have yet to resume, apart from oil company Seplat’s dual listing in Lagos and London in 2014.
- Barclays Africa says it will join the NSE as a broker in July, Reuters reports. In the past few years, the bourse has been mulling applications from leading global investment banks to join its trading floor to boost foreign investment in Nigeria. Garth Klintworth, head of markets for Barclays Africa Group, said its subsidiary, Absa Nigeria, had acquired a securities licence in Nigeria, “to increase its presence” in the country. He said Barclays Africa had seen some in-flows into Nigeria in the first quarter of 2018, though most investors had opted to wait to tap into higher yields. In another development, some 1.14 billion shares of Stanbic IBTC Holding were sold at ₦53.75 each the NSE said on Friday in a block deal valued at about $195 million. The deal was a negotiated trade between seller Rencap Securities and buyer Stanbic IBTC Stockbrokers. Stanbic IBTC Holding’s shares closed at ₦46.60.