Business of Flowers on Valentine’s Day

Valentine's Day is widely regarded as the day of love. The adage is that the way to a man's heart is though his stomach, but the way to woman's heart usually starts with a bunch of flowers.

With that in mind, ABN’s Samantha Loring headed off to Netflorist, South Africa's largest online flower retailer.

SA Ranked as Top Emerging Economy in Africa

Grant Thornton's recent report entitled Emerging Markets Opportunity Index high growth economies has ranked South Africa as the leading emerging economy on the African continent, ahead of Nigeria in terms of potential investment destinations.

Joining ABN’s Karima Brown to discuss the survey is Johan Blignault, Managing Partner of Grant Thornton Pretoria.

International Trade and Development in Africa

The founder of the newly developed African Centre for International trade and development has said the centre will encourage Nigeria to regulate and advice the sub-regions on best practices to encourage business and full trade integration within the continent and the rest of the world.

 

 

 

ABN's Ummu Ibrahim caught up with Bamanga Tukur, founder of the African Centre for International Trade and Development, and asked why it is important to have such an institution in Africa.

New Law Stops Foreign Nationals From Owning South African Land

South African Flag

A law that is due to be passed by the South African government will ban foreign nationals from owning land in the country, said Rural Development and Land Reform Minister Gugile Nkwinti said on Tuesday.

The government has been active in auditing all state-owned land and is now ready to move onto privately owned pieces of land. Once this audit is finished the law will go into effect, ruling that foreign nationals will instead lease land on a long term basis.

AFRICA INVESTMENT: Maize or myth: Zimbabwe farming bounces back?

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - More than a decade after the chaotic and violent seizure of white-run farms by allies of President Robert Mugabe, food production in Zimbabwe is returning to 1990s levels as the new owners get to grips with the job, according to a new book.

The farm takeovers led by pro-Mugabe independence war veterans from 2000 onwards are widely seen as the catalyst for an economic meltdown that culminated in hyperinflation and an estimated 40 percent contraction in output over eight years.

In his book "Zimbabwe Takes Back its Land", however, London School of Economics researcher Joseph Hanlon argues that the seizures - while delivering short-term economic trauma - were a radical form of land redistribution that is starting to bear fruit.

Shell to invest $4 billion in Nigeria, others in 2013

In line with its strategic drive to grow its upstream businesses, with ongoing selective investment in its downstream activities, Royal Dutch Shell has said $4 billion would be invested in 2013 in “future opportunities” such as Nigeria onshore, Kazakhstan, Iraq, the Arctic and heavy oil.

Shell expects to make a net capital investment of $33 billion in 2013.

 

$12 billion of this will go into what it calls its upstream and downstream “engines” – the mature, cash-generative businesses in Shell. Some $18 billion will be directed at “growth priorities”: integrated gas, deepwater and resource plays.

 

AFCON win presents Nigeria N20bn business opportunities

Advertising agencies, printers, the players, coaching staff and a host of football related businesses will enjoy a slice of the windfall valued at over N20 billion following Nigeria’s third winning of the Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) last weekend in South Africa.

 

Brand experts confirm to BusinessDay that the opportunities are huge. They say the economic effect will be felt well into 2015 when the country defends the title in Morocco. One analyst estimates the win could add as much as 0.10 percentage points to annual growth from increased consumer spending.

 

Richard Branson: Life at 30,000 feet

"If you’re bringing up kids, you just want to smother them with love and praise and enthusiasm. So I don’t think you can mollycoddle your kids too much really.” (Richard Branson)

 

Richard Branson bootstrapped his way from record-shop owner to head of the Virgin empire. Now he's focusing his boundless energy on saving our environment.

 

 

Richard Branson talks to TED's Chris Anderson about the ups and the downs of his career, from his multibillionaire success to his multiple near-death experiences -- and reveals some of his (very surprising) motivations.
      

Why you should listen to him:

He's ballooned across the Atlantic, floated down the Thames with the Sex Pistols, and been knighted by the Queen. His megabrand, Virgin, is home to more than 250 companies, from gyms, gambling houses and bridal boutiques to fleets of planes, trains and limousines. The man even owns his own island.
And now Richard Branson is moving onward and upward into space (tourism): Virgin Galactic's Philippe Starck-designed, The first Burt Rutan-engineered spacecraft, The Enterprise, completed its first captive carry in early 2010 and is slated to start carrying passengers into the thermosphere in 2012, at $200,000 a ticket.
Branson also has a philanthropic streak. He's pledged the next 10 years of profits from his transportation empire (an amount expected to reach $3 billion) to the development of renewable alternatives to carbon fuels. And then there's his Virgin Earth Challenge, which offers a $25 million prize to the first person to come up with an economically viable solution to the greenhouse gas problem.

"There is luck, and then there is Richard Branson luck." - The New Yorker, May 14, 2007

ICAN releases its 2013 Professional Training Programme

The Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria, ICAN has released its 2013 Professional Training Programme. The programme includes an off-shore Executive Continuing Professional Education (ECPE) to be held in Banjul, The Gambia from May 5 - 10, 2013.

See details of the communication released by ICAN on 13 February 2013 below.

Nigerian Stock Exchange identifies companies with free float deficiencies

The Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) has identified five companies that have free float deficiencies. This comes on the heels of equity investors losing about N7billion yesterday due to sales pressure which dominated the stock market as investors resorted to profit taking.
The free float of a company is the proportion of shares that are held by investors who are likely to be willing trade. It is a measure of how many shares are reasonably liquid. It therefore excludes those shares held by strategic shareholders.

Currently at the Stock Exchange, the companies that have free float deficiencies are

Steve Jobs: How to live before you die

Steve Jobs: How to live before you die

As CEO of Apple, Steve Jobs spearheaded a few of the most iconic products in technology, entertainment and design.

Why you should listen to him:     

The pundits of Silicon Valley have a term for Steve Jobs' charisma: the reality distortion field. But the truth is, most of us like living in Jobs' reality, where exquisite design and sheer utility make for some addictively usable tools.

Jobs' famous persuasive power was equalled by his creativity and business brilliance -- apparent in legendary hardware and software achievements across three decades of work. The Macintosh computer (which brought the mouse-driven, graphical user interface to prominence), Pixar Animation Studios (which produced Toy Story, the first fully-3D-animated feature film), the iPod, the iPhone, the iPad all owe credit to Jobs' leadership and invention.
Jobs battled a rare form of pancreatic cancer -- adding to an epic life story that mirrors the story of Apple itself: ever the underdog, ever the spectacular success. In August 2011 he stepped down as Apple's CEO, remaining as Chairman of the Board. He died on October 5, 2011.

"The past decade in business belongs to Jobs."

Fortune Magazine

Nigerian banks to implement shared data base project in June 2013

Nigerian banks would start implementing the shared data base project in June to enhance consumer credit services in the sector, Godwin Imefile, the Managing Director, Zenith Bank Plc, disclosed to journalists at the end of the Bankers Committee meeting on Tuesday in Abuja. He said that the project would provide every bank customers and prospective customers a unique identification numbers that would help them to access loan for various projects.

"Your bio-metric information and thumb print is taken in; once you do this and all information is taken in bank A, and if tomorrow you want to open an account in bank B and you just show your number, an account can automatically be opened for you. Or, even if you say you have forgotten your number and bank B takes your finger print, your data pops out and it will be easy for the bank to identify you and for the customer to do banking transactions."

Odukpani power plant set to commence operation by year-end

The 565 megawatts Odukpani Power Plant in Cross River will commence operation before the end of 2013, the Minister of Information, Mr Labaran Maku, said at a Citizens Forum/Town Hall meeting held on Tuesday in Calabar. The meeting was held as part of the ongoing good governance tour of the state.

He said that the power plant was the fourth that the team had visited since the beginning of the tour.

"The Odukpani Power Plant has been virtually completed; the only thing remaining now is gas supply. At present, there is a contract to supply gas to the power plant before the end of March. So, I want to assure Nigerians that before the end of the year the Odukpani power plant will begin to generate power for the country. This is the fourth power plant that we have visited since we started this tour across the country; so by 2014, power will no longer be a problem in Nigeria", he said.

GE to construct multi-billion naira manufacturing plant in Calabar

General Electric (GE) is set to commence work on the construction of its multi-billion naira engineering manufacturing plant at the Calabar Free Trade Zone, Mr Sadiq Kasim, General Manager of the zone, said. Kasim, who spoke at the National Good Governance Tour team in Calabar on Tuesday, said that the management of the zone and the company had finalised arrangements for construction work to commence on the construction of the factory at the free trade zone.

Kasim said the company had promised that it would, in the first phase of the project, invest more than N250 million in the establishment of the plant.
"Any moment from now, work on the site of GE’s engineering manufacturing plant will commence. We have given them land and very soon their engineers will mobilise to site and start work; they said they will be committing about N250 million in the first phase", he said.

Diageo To Complete $368.8m Investment In Nigeria

Diageo, which brews Guinness in Nigeria, on Monday said it would complete its $368.8 million investment to expand its Nigerian operations by November this year.
Reuters reported that this was aimed at boosting its beer production capacity in Africa’s most populous nation by 50 percent, citing the firm’s president for Africa, Nick Blazquez.

The international news agency said Diageo had already spent half the money to expand its operations and would complete the investment within nine months.

CBN To Begin Cashless Policy In FCT, Rivers, Kano, Abia From July 1

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has concluded plans to roll out the cashless policy in Rivers, Kano, Anambra and Abia States as well as the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) from July 1.
CBN Deputy Governor (Operations), Mr. Tunde Lemo, in an interview he granted in Abuja, said that the aforementioned states and the FCT were chosen because of the large volume of cash transactions in some of their major cities such as Aba, Kano, Port Harcourt and Onitsha.

The cashless policy, which began in Lagos in January last year, is aimed at reducing the volume of cash in the system. The policy specifies penal charges for individuals and corporate organisations that want to withdraw or lodge cash above prescribed limits.
Under the policy, the CBN pegged the daily cumulative cash withdrawal or deposit limit for individual accounts at N500,000 per day and N3 million per day for corporate accounts.

Nigeria: Driving Entrepreneurship, Job Creation Through Technology

Using a new scheme called Microsoft 4Africa Initiative, the technology giant hopes to spur entrepreneurship and Small, Medium Enterprises growth in Nigeria. Crusoe Osagie reviews the initiative and notes that people must be ready to compete in order to benefit

The biggest economic challenge facing Nigeria today is the fact that nearly 60 per cent of the nation's citizens are either under-employed or totally unemployed.

With the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) statistics declaring that over 50 per cent of Nigeria's huge 160 million people fall between the ages of 0 and 24 years, simple deduction therefore reveals that Nigeria apparently has young people within the age range of 0 and 40 years, numbering more than the entire population of Germany; one of the biggest countries in the European Union.

Such an army of young people, most of whom are either unemployed or underemployed, are ticking time bombs and unless they are put to productive economic use, a humanitarian crisis is inevitable in the next few years, analysts believe.

Microsoft begins $75 million plan to spur African Entrepreneurs

By Eric Ombok

Microsoft Corp. (MSFT), the world’s biggest software maker, said it started a $75 million program that will put as many as a million small African businesses online in the next three years.
The company’s 4Afrika Initiative will also offer business training for as many as 200,000 people and create an online hub for application development and business networking, said Louis Otieno, the project’s legal and corporate affairs director.

EIB mulls investing in Nigeria's power sector

The European Investment Bank (EIB) said it was interested in investing in Nigeria’s power sector.

An official of the bank, Rogr Kelly said in Abuja when he led a delegation from the bank on a fact-finding visit to the Ministry of Power.

He said the bank was willing to assist Nigeria to reduce the challenges it was facing in the power sector.

He said the bank had assisted other developing countries in solving their energy problems in the past.

He said the bank was willing to invest about 50 percent of its equity share in renewable energy, small hydro plant and biomass.



Nigerian Minister of state for Power, Zainab Kuchi

Responding, the Minister of state for Power, Zainab Kuchi informed that Nigeria planned to generate over 10,000 megawatts in 2012, regretting however that it could only generate about 4,500 megawatts at the end of the year.

She said that Nigeria had an enabling environment for investors interested in investing in the power sector.

She said that Nigeria would need N3.5 billion annually to meet its targeted 40,000 megawatts by 2020.