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Africa’s richest man, Aliko Dangote, has said he is still working towards buying Arsenal Football Club, despite the fact that his bid to acquire a stake in the club was rebuffed by the owners in 2010.
In an interview with Bloomberg, while on a journey from Addis Ababa to Lagos last Friday, Dangote expressed hope that his new strategy would enable him buy the north London club at a price the owners won’t want to resist.
He said, “I still hope, one day at the right price, that I’ll buy the team. I might buy it, not at a ridiculous price but a price that the owners won’t want to resist. I know my strategy,” Dangote, a known fan of the north London club, said.
Dangote is rated to be worth $15.7bn, and has interests in cement, sugar and flour. He is currently investing $11bn in a 650,000 barrel-a-day oil refinery in Ondo State, and $2.5bn in gas pipelines running from the Niger-Delta area to Lagos.
He is positive that his new bid for the control of Arsenal will likely come in a few years after he is done with current investments and have taken his business to a certain level.
“We have $16 billion-worth of investments in the next few years. Right now I want to take my own business to a certain level. Once I finish on that trajectory, then maybe, (an offer will follow),” he said.
Arsenal, who are among the most successful clubs in England, having won the English League 13 times, kept their hope of finishing in second place this season behind league winners Chelsea alive by beating Hull 3-1 on Monday. The Gunners also hope to retain the FA Cup which they won last season after going eight years without a trophy.
Arsenal Holdings Plc., is valued at £988m ($1.49 bn).
American, Stan Kroenke, who is also owner of the National Football League’s St. Louis Rams, and rated at $5.6bn, holds 67 per cent of Arsenal, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Red & White Sec Ltd., controlled by Uzbek billionaire Alisher Usmanov and Farhad Moshiri, owns 30 per cent.
If his new bid sails through, Dangote will be the first African owner of a club in the EPL where billionaires like Russia’s Roman Abramovich, the owner of Chelsea, and Abu Dhabi’s Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed al Nahyan, who controls Manchester City, have acquired teams.
Dangote is among the club’s fans who believe Arsene Wenger, who has managed it since 1996, has done well from a financial standpoint, but was quoted as saying Wenger “needs to change his style a bit. They need new direction.”
The dollar sank to its lowest level in more than two months as the currency market adopted a markedly dovish view on the United States monetary policy after data showed the economy virtually stagnating in the first three months of the year.
But as the market awaited the outcome of a meeting of the Federal Reserve policy makers, government bonds and equities on both sides of the Atlantic also came under pressure, according to Financial Times.
This was particularly so in Europe as the euro broke above key resistance levels, further aided by more signs that the European Central Bank’s quantitative easing programme was helping to ease deflation pressures and improve credit conditions.
By midday in New York, the dollar index — a gauge of the currency’s value against a weighted basket of peers — was down 1.1 per cent at 95.09, the lowest since the end of February. In mid-March, the measure reached a 12-year high above 100.
An analyst at Afrinvest West Africa Limited, a research firm, Mr. Ayodeji Ebo, said the drop in dollar might not impact the naira immediately.
He, however, said that if the fall persisted, it might affect foreign portfolio inflow.
He said, “The fall in dollar’s value may affect the FPI if it persists; it may not have direct impact on the naira immediately. However, it may have a very little impact if it persists for a long time.”
The US economy grew at an annualised pace of 0.2 per cent in the first quarter, according to the preliminary estimate from the Department of Commerce — well short of the expected one per cent expansion and down sharply from the 2.2 per cent rate seen in the fourth quarter of 2014.
Analysts highlighted that the data — at least to some degree — reflected temporary factors such as port closings and bad weather, and suggested there could be a repeat of the pattern of recent years of a soft first quarter followed by a rebound.
“Since 2010, the average rate of first-quarter real GDP growth has been 0.6 per cent, versus an average of 2.9 per cent in the remaining three quarters,” noted Michael Gapen, an economist at Barclays.
“We expect a bounce back in growth to 3.0 per cent in the second quarter, driven by a solid 3.5 per cent rise in personal consumption. However, some of the weakness in structures investment and net trade is likely to persist as the effects of a stronger dollar and lower oil prices constrain activity in these sectors of the economy over time.”
The move in the dollar contrasted sharply with the action in government bond markets, where the yield on the 10-year US Treasury bond jumped by nine basis points to 2.06 per cent and that on the equivalent-maturity German Bund leapt 11bp to 0.28 per cent.
The euro was up 1.8 per cent at $1.1171 — a factor that contributed to a hefty 2.2 per cent slide for the FTSE Eurofirst 300. The equity index has now fallen 3.7 per cent in the past two days. On Wall Street, the S&P 500 was down 0.8 per cent.
Data on Wednesday showed that German consumer prices fell 0.1 per cent in April, for a year-on-year increase of 0.4 per cent — up from 0.3 per cent in March.
“German headline inflation should gradually continue to increase,” said Carsten Brzeski, an economist at the ING.
“However, as long as even the largest and strongest eurozone economy does not show any signs of inflationary overheating, the ECB will continue QE and hush any tapering discussion.”
Other figures showed that private sector loans in the eurozone had risen in March for the first time since May 2012.
“Improved bank lending supports the recovery and we continue to look for GDP growth of 1.6 per cent in 2015, compared to the consensus of 1.4 per cent,” said Pernille Bomholdt Nielsen, senior analyst at Danske Bank.
Divyang Shah, global strategist at IFR Markets, noted the US and eurozone data releases but added that his preferred explanation for the action in currency and fixed income markets was simply that positioning had once again become stretched.
“The two favoured core positions over the last few months were to be long eurozone bonds and long the dollar,” he said. “Since 10-year Bund yields hit a low just under 5bp [last week] both of these trends had come under pressure with little in the way of further upside.”
The Fed was not the only central bank in action on Wednesday. Sweden’s Riksbank unexpectedly left interest rates unchanged, although it did announce a SKr40-50bn expansion of asset purchases.
“We regard the Riksbank’s move as warranted, given that ECB’s QE continues to put upward pressure on the krona and, as a consequence, downward pressure on the Swedish inflation outlook,” said Chiara Silvestre, an economist at UniCredit.
Brent oil was up 2.2 per cent at a 2015 high of $66.09 a barrel, helped by some bullish US inventories data.
But the sharp drop in the dollar failed to provide a boost for gold, with the metal down $2 at $1,209 an ounce.
Commercial banks have sent marketers, mostly females after newly-elected senators and members of the House of Representatives in Abuja to open discussions on investments and other business deals.
The energetic, sweet-talking and mostly female marketers, flooded the International Conference Centre, venue of an ongoing induction course for the new arrivals on Monday.
Investigations by The PUNCH showed that the target of the banks largely was to woo the lawmakers to open accounts with them.
Some of the smartly dressed marketers also offered loan opportunities they claimed their banks could guarantee with “friendly repayment terms.”
Over 290 members of the House for example, are newcomers, out of the total of 360.
In the Senate, about 69 senators are also newcomers, out of 109.
Findings showed that the marketers started tracing the lawmakers since Sunday night when Senate President, David Mark, declared the induction programme open at the Transcorps Hotel, Abuja.
“They flooded the Congress Hall of the hotel Sunday night.
“They didn’t give the lawmakers breathing space, as they offered all sorts of facilities (loans) and seeking to maintain their accounts,” a senior legislative aide confided in The PUNCH on Monday.
A member of the House earns around N27.9m every quarter as official allowance.
Presiding officers and other principal officers receive higher figures.
This excludes a monthly salary of N1m.
Senators collect over N30m as quarterly allowance and receive higher salaries than their House counterparts.
The PUNCH gathered that the practice over time was for the banks to compete among themselves to attract as many of the lawmakers as possible to maintain the lawmakers’ accounts.
“In the end, many lawmakers get loans in amounts ranging from N50m to upward of N200m.
“They will be here for four years and it is understandable that the banks see this as a window for quick returns,” one National Assembly official told The PUNCH.
However, investigations indicated that there were several cases of lawmakers who failed to repay the loans before the expiration of their tenure, leading to disputes between the two sides.
In 2011, a particular new generation bank withheld the severance packages of many members and also seized their assets, owing to failure to meet up with their loan obligations.
One marketer, who gave her name simply as Elina, told The PUNCH that there was nothing wrong with seeking for “investment opportunities.”
She argued that being new in Abuja, most of the members needed information on sources of funding to assist them in settling down for the business of legislation.
“We know how it is; there will be accommodation challenges.
“Some need funding for transportation even before they get their official votes for vehicles and other support services.
“So, the banks are there to provide these support services by way of funding,” she added.
The National Assembly and its bureaucracy, including the National Assembly Service Commission, has a total budget of N120bn this year.
The figure was a drop from the N150bn it had enjoyed since 2007.
The Minister of Petroleum Resources Mrs. Diezani Alison-Madueke, on Wednesday disclosed that the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation has started refunding the $1.48bn unremitted fund into the Federation Account as recommended by an audit firm, PriceWaterHouse Coopers.
She however did not disclose how much has for far been refunded by the corporation.
She also denied reports that she was seeking the assistance of some highly-placed persons in order to escape prosecution for alleged corruption from the incoming administration of the President-elect, Muhammadu Buhari.
Alison-Madueke spoke with State House correspondents at the end of the weekly meeting of Federal Executive Council at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
It will be recalled the Federation Account Allocation Committee had on Monday night constituted a committee to find out the reasons for the delay in the refund of the sum.
PriceWaterHouse Coopers had in the report of its forensic audit report of the corporation recommended that the NNPC should refund the amount to the Federation Account.
Alison-Madueke however explained that the unremitted fund was owed by the NPDC for a block that had been assigned from the NNPC to the NPDC.
She said, “The PriceWaterHouse Coopers forensic audit that was done few weeks ago in his recommendation mentioned that $1.48bn was owed by the NPDC for a block that had hitherto been assigned from the NNPC to the NPDC which is its subsidiary.
“They felt that the right process would be that the NPDC will refund that money to the Federation Account. The NPDC has apparently started those refunds and it is also in discussion with the NNPC and the DPR on same. So the refund has actually began.”
While saying that the payment was being done under her directive, she insisted that the sum was not missing but transferred by the NNPC to the NPDC.
The minister also denied media reports that she was reaching out to some prominent Nigerians, including a former military Head of State, Gen. Abdusalami Abubakar (retd.), to seek soft landing from the incoming government.
She said she had in the course of her job as minister met with elder statesmen across the country and wondered why her meeting with Abubakar would be singled out.
The minister said she could not be seeking for a soft landing because she was not aware that she had committed any crime.
She said, “I have not sought such assistance because I am not aware that I have been indicted of any crime that I will need a soft landing.
“Over the last four years, I have many times been unfortunately accused and libelled in so many malicious and vindictive ways.
“I have explained these things and pushed back robustly on these accusations and I have even gone to court on many of them. Yet, they keep being regurgitated.”
source: Punch
The Federation Account Allocation Committee on Monday night constituted a committee to find out the reasons for the delay in the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation to make $1.48bn available to the three tiers of government.
PriceWaterHouse Coopers had in the report of its forensic audit report of the corporation recommended that the NNPC should refund the amount to the Federation Account.
The firm was last year hired to carry out the audit following an allegation by the former Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Lamido Sanusi, that $20bn was not remitted to the Federation Account by the NNPC.
Sanusi, who is now the Emir of Kano, had written a letter to President Goodluck Jonathan that $49bn was not remitted to the Federation Account by the NNPC.
But following the controversy which the letter generated, a committee was set up to reconcile the account.
Sanusi later recanted and said the unremitted fund was $12bn. He later changed the figure to $20bn.
PwC had stated in the report that while the total gross revenue generated from crude oil lifting was $69.34bn between January 2012 and July 2013 and not $67bn as earlier stated by the Senate Reconciliation Committee, what was remitted to the Federation Account was $50.81bn and not $47bn.
The audit report revealed that $28.22bn was the value of domestic crude oil allocated to the NNPC, adding that total amount spent on subsidy for Premium Motor Spirit was $5.32bn.
But the Chairman, Forum of Finance Commissioners of FAAC, Mr. Timothy Odaah, while speaking on the matter in an interview with journalists after this month’s meeting, said the committee was worried about the delay in the release of the fund.
He said while President Goodluck Jonathan had given a directive for the fund to be made available, the corporation had yet to release it with about a month to the end of the current administration.
Considering the persistent drop in allocations to the three tiers of government, he said the money was needed by the states so that they could meet up with their obligations since majority of them had yet to pay salaries of workers and contractors for projects executed.
Odaah said, “We are making a clarion call that the $1.48bn coming from the audit of the NNPC should be made available so that we can clear what we owe with that.
“The coming (April) FAAC meeting is the last (for this administration) and we believe the money should come during that period because if it doesn’t come by then, it is belated and we don’t want it to escape that period.
“Today, there was a committee constituted for the purpose of ensuring a that we meet with the NNPC so that everything would be ironed out because we know that Mr. President has already given a directive and we also know that the minister (of Petroleum Resources) has directed that it should be paid but we don’t know exactly what is happening.
“We need that money; the Federal Government needs it, the states and local governments also need it, and if it is not released with this type of abysmal funding we have seen, it will be very terrible.”
Meanwhile, the continued shutdown of trunks and pipelines at various terminals continue to impact negatively on the country’s revenue as gross revenue accruing to the Federation Account dropped by N86.42bn to N315.04bn in March from the N401.46bn received in February.
Source: Punch
CONFERENCE of Nigerian Political Parties , CNPP, has forwarded a letter to the Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of Economy, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, requesting for full disclosure of transactions concerning the contract for three Greenfield refineries and petrochemical plant awarded by President Goodluck Jonathan for $23 billion.
Spokesman of the group, Mr. Osita Okechukwu, who disclosed this in Enugu yesterday, said the group derived its powers to demand for the explanation from the Freedom of Information, FoI, Act.
The letter containing the request, dated March 9, 2015, and titled, ‘Request for Information on three Greenfield refineries’, read: “May I under the Freedom of Information Act 2011, request for the full disclosure of transactions concerning the three Greenfield refineries and petrochemical plant contract awarded on May 13, 2010, by President Goodluck Jonathan to Chinese State Construction and Engineering Corporation Limited, CSCEC,, at $23 billion meant to be located at Bayelsa, Kogi and Lagos states.
“Secondly, why are they dead on arrival as six years down the line, neither the three Greenfield refineries nor petrochemical plant is under construction.
“The three Greenfield refineries one understands, on completion were to add 750,000 barrels per day capacity to Nigeria’s refining infrastructure and create over a million jobs. “In addition, the petrochemical plant was to source natural gas from Nigeria’s gas master plan, produce polymers, solvents and fertilizer, thus boosting food production and textile industry.
“Accordingly, the three refineries and the petrochemical plant could have stemmed the flood of imported refined products in the country, hence ploughing back the over $10 billion spent annually into our economy.”
Okechukwu expressed regret that the abandonment of such critical refining infrastructure stimulated closure of factories, crash of the naira, gross unemployment, return of huge debt trap and fuel scarcity, to mention but a few.
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