Daily Watch – Abraaj rescues C&I, Nigerian manufacturers have ₦149 billion in unsold goods

Andrew Gbodume has resigned as the Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer of MRS Oil, according to a statement by the firm on Thursday. It was revealed the board of the company approved the resignation by a written resolution dated January 7, 2019. No reason whatsoever was given by the company. However, the board has approved the immediate appointment of Priscilla Thorpe-Apezteguia as the Director and Acting MD of oil firm.

Abraaj Group, a Pakistani owned private-equity firm, is acquiring about 70 percent stake in C&I Leasing, a Nigeria-based company. Abraaj agreed to convert its $10 million loan stock to equity in the company. According to Bloomberg, the CEO of C&I Leasing, Andrew Otike-Odibi, said Abraaj felt taking its funds out of the firm could wreck the business. As a result, it considered the option of staying to convert the debt to equity. C&I Leasing, currently placed on suspension by the Nigeria Stock Exchange, with a share price of ₦1.78 per unit, announced in December 2018 that it was reconstructing its share capital by 75 percent on a ratio of four existing shares to a new share.

Nigeria’s total debt stood at ₦22.429 trillion ($73.213 billion) as at September 30, 2018, according to data from the Debt Management Office. This is about the same as the figures recorded in June 2018; ₦22.38 trillion ($73.208 billion). The figures comprise the external and domestic debts of the FG, and all the states including the FCT. The external debts stood at $21.59 billion, depicting a 2.02% decline due largely to the redemption by Nigeria of a $500 million Eurobond which matured on July 12, 2018, while the domestic debt component of the country’s total debt grew by 1.19% from ₦15.629 trillion in June 2018 to ₦15.814 trillion in September 2018. The increase of ₦185 billion was attributed to the FGN’s ₦135 billion and states and FCT’s ₦50 billion.

The inventory of unsold manufactured goods in Nigeria stood at ₦149.23 billion at the end of 2018, down by ₦10.36 billion (6.9 percent) from ₦159.59 billion in the corresponding period of 2017. According to a report by the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria, this is as a result of low real consumption of the goods, which is an effect of inflationary pressure from smuggling, counterfeiting and cloning of the country’s manufactured products as well as high cost operating environment. Basic Metal, Iron & Steel Fabricated Metal comprise 19.03 percent of the unsold stock, the Chemical and Pharmaceutical sector has ₦24.36 billion (16.2 percent), Food, Beverage and Tobacco have 13.1 percent; and Domestic/Industrial Plastic, Rubber & Foam with ₦18.96 billion, had the greater share of the unsold goods in 2018. In the first half of 2018, Ogun zone recorded the highest inventory of unsold manufactured goods with a value of ₦57.30 billion (38.4 percent); Ikeja, Lagos zone recorded ₦36.76 billion (24.6 percent) in unsold goods, while Apapa, Lagos zone recorded ₦35.76 billion of the total inventory.