Daily Watch – FG approves May & Baker vaccine JV, Hayat Kimya opens Ogun factory

1st June 2017

  • The presidency and lawmakers are still in talks over the 2017 budget nearly three weeks after the spending plans were passed by the Senate. Both chambers of parliament agreed to a bigger budget than the ₦7.298 trillion draft spending plan submitted by President Muhammadu Buhari in December. “There are ongoing consultations between the executive and the legislature over the budget. Consultations have not been concluded,” said Ita Enang, senior special assistant to the president on Senate matters, without giving details. The Senate passed the budget on May 11. Last year’s budget, which was passed in May 2016, was delayed for months due to disagreements between lawmakers and the presidency over spending plans which cut the supply of government money and deepened the economic crisis.
  • Nigeria’s cabinet approved on Wednesday a plan to set up a joint venture with pharmaceutical firm May & Baker Nigeria to produce vaccines, the health minister said. The company will have an initial capital of ₦100 million ($328,515). Shares in May & Baker rose nearly 5 percent on the Nigerian bourse after the announcement, outperforming the main share index which was up 0.7 percent. Health minister Isaac Adewole told reporters the joint venture would be based in the Lagos with the government holding a 49 percent stake and the pharmaceutical firm the rest. “It will take off in 2017,” he said, adding that a final agreement would be signed within two weeks. The company between 2017 and 2021 will produce basic vaccines that we need,” he said.
  • At least 40 percent of media advertising expenditure by Nigerian companies in 2016 were unaccounted for, according to a report by a leading marketing and advertising publication. An estimated ₦13.4 billion of media advertising that would have been paid for, according to Marketing Edge, was either misplaced (i.e. advert not carried as planned and ordered) or unaccounted for (i.e. advert not monitored to be sure it was carried in the first place). The report added that the situation was compounded by allegations that some media monitoring service providers might have been conniving with some radio and television stations as well as media agency employees to issue questionable, even fraudulent media compliance reports over the years. The report alleged for example, that a radio station in the North claimed 100 percent compliance in January 2017 but was proved wrong after checks by a media monitoring service provider. Some broadcast stations are in the habit of doctoring advert logs, Marketing Edge concluded.
  • Shareholders of Wapic Insurance at its Annual General Meeting gave the company management approval to raise up to ₦10 billion in fresh capital. The company is doing so in order to meet the risk based supervision by the National Insurance Commission. Risk based supervision means insurance companies will only be able to insure risks that their capitalization can conveniently accommodate. The firm’s chairman, Aigboje Aig-Imokhuede compared the insurance recapitalisation to a similar exercise in the banking industry. Companies that have sizeable capital would be able to insure bigger risks. The company saw its first quarter profit before tax grew by 135 percent, from ₦163 million recorded in the first quarter of 2016 to ₦384 million in the period under review.
  • Hayat Kimya, a Turkish fast moving consumer goods company, inaugurated an ultra-modern diaper and tissue factory at the Agbara Industrial Layout last week in a ceremony attended by Ogun State Governor, Senator Ibikunle Amosun. In his remarks, Amosun said Hayat’s multi-million dollar investment in the country would act as a catalyst for other Turkish companies looking to access new markets in Nigeria, and especially Ogun. He also urged firms in Ogun State to assist the government in infrastructural development, especially in the area of road construction. Hayat Global CEO, Avni Kigili, said the company invested $100 million to manufacture Molfix diapers, Papia and Familia tissues at the world-class factory in Agbara. “All of this cutting edge technological manufacturing investment can only run better with the devoted work of the 500 Hayat employees. Products from the factory will serve the West and Central African market, and augment the company’s North African factories where necessary, given that the Nigerian plant is built with the same global standards as all other Hayat factories around the world. The manufacturing plant in Agbara would create about 30,000 job opportunities to Nigerians,” he said. Hayat Kimya has 14 production sites around the world, and the Agbara plant is the company’s first major investment in sub-Saharan Africa. Hayat Kimya manufactures consumer goods in detergents, hygiene and tissue categories.