Twitter seeks to avoid Facebook’s IPO stumble
Twitter Inc.’s market debut will be the most anticipated initial public offering since Facebook Inc. (FB) listed last year, and the microblogging service is making sure to avoid some of its rival’s pitfalls.
Twitter disclosed it had filed to go public in one of its 140-character postings Thursday, giving no other financial figures or details on when it will actually list.
The San Francisco-based company filed confidentially with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission through a process that will keep sales and profit data under wraps until shortly before a road show to market to investors, Bloomberg reports. Twitter may be seeking to avoid the hype that led to Facebook pricing its offering at 107 times trailing 12-month earnings, more expensive than 99 percent of all companies in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index at the time. Facebook lost half its value following the $16 billion IPO.
“Twitter will do everything they can to avoid anything that looks like the Facebook IPO, both on the expectations front and the execution front,” David Pakman, a New York-based partner at Venrock Inc., an early-stage venture-capital firm, said by phone.
“By the confidential filing, it will hopefully be able to keep expectations down a bit, and hopefully use a different pricing strategy than Facebook.”
Goldman Sachs Group Inc. will be the lead underwriter for the IPO, according to people with knowledge of the matter, who asked not to be identified because the information isn’t public. The investment bank’s top rival, Morgan Stanley, led Facebook’s public debut.
‘Extremely Turbulent’ Twitter’s filing used the Jumpstart Our Business Startups, or JOBS, Act, which lets companies that qualify as emerging growth companies submit a filing for confidential review. Jim Prosser, a spokesman for Twitter, declined to comment on the company’s IPO strategy.
The microblogging service was valued last month at about $10.5 billion by GSV Capital Corp. (GSVC), one of its investors, up 5 percent from a May estimate. Facebook, whose shares reached a record this week after recovering from a decline of as much as 53 percent last year, currently is valued at about $109 billion.
Facebook Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg described the first year as a public company as “extremely turbulent” in an interview Sept. 11 at an event run by technology blog TechCrunch. Still, he’s learned from the process and said he shouldn’t have worried as much about the challenges of going public, he said when asked about a potential Twitter IPO.
“I actually don’t think it’s that bad,” Zuckerberg, 29, said. “I was really worried that people would leave the company and that people would get really demoralised when the stock was down. I actually think that it’s made our company a lot stronger.”
“Twitter did it because they can,” said Michael Pachter, an analyst Wedbush Securities Inc. in Los Angeles. “It just avoids the public scrutiny.”
Twitter, which started in 2006 and didn’t introduce advertising service until 2010, is also at an earlier stage of growth than Facebook was at its public debut. While Facebook had almost $4 billion in revenue the year prior to the IPO, Twitter is targeting sales of $1 billion in 2014. That means the company has a better shot at showing robust growth after it goes public.
Dell shareholders approve founder’s buyout proposal
Dell Inc. (DELL) Chief Executive Officer Michael Dell won shareholder approval for a planned $24.9 billion buyout, capping a seven-month standoff with investors and gaining free rein to attempt a turnaround of the struggling personal-computer maker outside the glare of public markets.
The founder’s victory, announced during a meeting Thursday at Dell’s headquarters in Round Rock, Texas, ends the jousting between the buyout group and investors led by billionaire Carl
Icahn and Southeastern Asset Management Inc. Disagreements overprice pushed the deal to the brink of defeat and resulted in two increases since the proposal was announced in February, Bloomberg reports. The takeover of the third-largest PC maker is the biggest LBO since Blackstone Group LP (BX) took Hilton Worldwide Inc. private in 2007.
CEO Dell, who founded the company as a college student in 1984, proposed taking it private to stem years of ebbing sales and profit as consumers shun PCs in favour of computing on smartphones
and tablets. Along with partner Silver Lake Management LLC, he plans to boost investments in mobile devices and data-center machines without the need to satisfy profit-hungry public
investors.
“There’s a lot of CEOs that have tried to take companies private to get away from the market,” said Michael Cusumano, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Sloan School of Management. “It’s an uphill battle.”
CEO Prevails
Dell’s path mirrors the rise and fall of the PC industry. Along with peers including Compaq Computer Corp. and Hewlett-Packard Co. (HPQ),
Dell rode a wave of growth as PCs became mainstream in the late 1980s and 1990s. The company also flourished by pioneering low-cost manufacturing and direct shipping to customers. Yet, like some competitors, it fell out of step with consumers over the last half a dozen years as people lost their appetite for desktops and laptops and gravitated instead to smartphones and tablets.
To prevail, the buyout by Dell and Silver Lake needed a majority of the voted shares to favor the transaction, excluding the CEO’s own stake of more than 15 percent. The deal won key endorsements in
August from Institutional Shareholder Services Inc. and two other influential proxy advisory firms. It also had the backing of a special committee of Dell’s board that evaluated potential transactions on the company’s behalf.
Sweetened Offer Michael Dell and Silver Lake sweetened their bid in early August, to $13.88 a share, including dividend payouts, from their previous offer of $13.65. In return, they secured a concession from the special board committee on new voting terms that wouldn’t count abstentions as “no” votes. Michael Dell originally had agreed to that standard, yet later said it “does not make sense,” as the high number of shares that hadn’t been voted made it more difficult to secure approval.
The preliminary vote tally shows the deal was approved by holders of a majority of Dell’s shares, the company said in a statement today. The transaction is expected to be completed by the end of the third quarter of Dell’s 2014 fiscal year.
“I am pleased with this outcome and am energised to continue building Dell into the industry’s leading provider of scalable, end-to-end technology solutions,” Michael Dell said in the statement.
Nigeria loses over N30bn annually to rising demand for foreign education
The constant disruption in the academic calendar of Nigeria’s tertiary education system is costing the nation an estimated N30 billion annually by way of foreign exchange paid by parents for their wards to school abroad, BusinessDay investigations reveal.
Findings from Canadian and British universities alone indicate that on the average 15,000 Nigerians get admitted to study in the two countries annually, with an average tuition and living cost of $19,000 per student.
This scenario alone means that Nigerians pay over N4.5 billion for their children and wards in the UK and Canada per annum. Those aspiring to the United States spend about N2 billion with about 7,000 students in American universities.
Though exact figures for other European countries, South Africa, Ghana, Malaysia and Asian countries could not be got, it is estimated that total foreign spending on education on a yearly basis could be in the region of N30 billion, which is 95 percent private sector financed.
The implication of this, according to analysts, portends great drain on the economy. They argue that this money would have been used for investment purposes if our tertiary institutions are well run without loss times.
The boom in foreign education, analysts say, is as a result of government’s poor education sector policy as well as lack of confidence in our local university education, which is bedevilled by constant academic disruption owing to industrial action and agitation by lecturers.
Total expenditure on foreign education currently is more than a quarter of the nation’s entire budget for the education sector in the last couple of years.
While it is no longer news that the industrial action embarked upon by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has crippled the public university system in the country for the over two months, what is however worrying education stakeholders is the academic future of students in the country who are paying for the lost time.
Iain Stewart, a member of the British Parliament, recently revealed that there will be nearly 30,000 Nigerian students in the UK by 2015, and this accounts for 7 percent of the total UK university population, thereby making Nigeria’s student population the third largest from non-European Union countries. The nation trails India that has 39,090 and China 67,325.
According to a recent report by the US Embassy Educational Advising Centre, Nigeria sends more students to the US than any other country in sub-Saharan Africa. Nigeria currently has over 6,500 students studying at over 733 institutions in all 50 states of the US and the District of Columbia.
To Tolu Odugbemi, vice chancellor, Ondo State University of Science and Technology (OSUSTECH), this trend is worrisome and called on government to arrest the situation, if it hopes to produce viable future for the productive youths of the country.
Odugbemi is pained that foreign universities are profiting from Nigeria’s ill-equipped institutions, as Nigerian youths paid whopping sums as tuition to Canadian, British and even neighbouring Ghana universities.
The university don is saddened by the fact that virtually all higher institutions in Nigeria currently depend almost exclusively on government subsidies. A situation that makes them almost totally dependence on the government for funding, this he opined cannot move higher education away from the doldrums it was currently experiencing.
Disruption in academic calendar, lack of infrastructure, incessant strikes by lecturers, and growing appetite for foreign graduates by employers, among other things, according to analysts, are responsible for this drive towards foreign education by Nigerians.
By: KELECHI EWUZIE
Oil Spill: Shell offers to pay N7.5bn to claimants
The Shell Petroleum Development Company has offered to pay N7.5 billion to the indigenes of Bodo community, Gokana Local Government Area of Rivers, in Nigeria who were affected by an oil spill in 2008.
An informed source close to Shell told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Port Harcourt on Thursday that the offer was made at the ongoing settlement negotiations between the company and representatives of the community.
The meeting is taking place in Port Harcourt. The source said that the company had made the proposal and was awaiting the response of the community’s representatives and their lawyers.
Shell had accepted responsibility for the oil spill in 2008 which polluted the waterways of the fishing communities.
The company however, insisted that the volume of the spill and number of those who lost their means of livelihood were exaggerated.
Shell’s spokesman, Joseph Obari, said: “We took part in this week’s settlement negotiations with two objectives — to make a generous offer of compensation to those who have suffered hardship as a result of the two highly regrettable operational spills in 2008, and to make progress in relation to the cleanup.
“We await the community’s response to our compensation proposal, and we’re pleased to have made progress in relation to the cleanup.
“SPDC and the Bodo community have committed their full support for the cleanup process, currently in progress, with the support of Bert Ronhaar, the former Netherlands Ambassador to Nigeria,’’ he added.
Obari said Shell had also proposed a series of interim measures to begin the removal of oil from the area.
“Of course, the success of any interim measures and final remediation depends on the cessation of oil theft and illegal refining in the area,” he said.
He added that oil theft, which usually affected the environment, had remained the major cause of oil pollution in the Niger Delta.
Meanwhile, some indigenes of Bodo community protested on Thursday about their exclusion from the ongoing negotiations with
Shell.
Their spokesman, Eugene Odey, a lawyer, said Shell was insincere in its efforts to deal with the majority of those affected by the 2008 oil spill.
Parliament approves EU-wide banking supervisor
European lawmakers Thursday agreed the first step in an ambitious EU banking union scheme, giving the European Central Bank the power to oversee the eurozone’s biggest banks.
The legislation, agreed by 556 votes in favour and 54 against, will enable the ECB to take over centralised bank supervision in a year following stress tests of banks’ balance sheets.
The step is the first pillar in a wider plan towards safer and more accountable banking. It had been broadly agreed in March by members of the 17-nation eurozone and Parliament but had not been put to the vote, AFP reports.
The banking supervisor will directly oversee 150 of Europe’s biggest banks, including most bank assets in the 17-country eurozone. Other nations in the 28-member European Union that do not use the
single currency will be able to opt in later. In Riga, ECB president Mario Dragi welcomed the vote on the Single Supervisory Mechanism (SSM).
“The ECB and the Parliament share a common purpose in ensuring proper accountability arrangements for the SSM,” he said.
MEPs had postponed this week’s vote by 48 hours, demanding more transparency and control, including a say in approving the chair and vice-chair of the supervisory board and the possibility of
launching probes into possible errors. Individual MEPs will also be able to question the supervisor in writing and receive a rapid reply.
The parliament also insisted on the strict division of ECB staff between monetary policy and supervision. The European Parliament green light “is a lynchpin of a deeper economic and monetary union,” said European Commission President Jose Manuel Barosso.
“Now our attention must turn urgently to the Single Resolution Mechanism,” he said, referring to the second pillar in the scheme for banking union.
The resolution mechanism would give the Commission the power to shut down any of the eurozone’s 6,000-plus banks even if national authorities disagreed.
In the past, failing banks have sapped government coffers and sent nations such as Ireland rushing for assistance.
Banking union would shift the burden of dealing with failing banks from taxpayers with new rules forcing creditors to take losses and a resolution fund created through mandatory levies on the
banks.
But there is scepticism in Germany about whether the mechanism is compatible with current EU treaties. The EU’s Internal Markets Commissioner Michel
Barnier said that “with this key piece of legislation, we are not only strengthening our banks and the financial stability of the eurozone, we are also strengthening economic integration.”
Saying it will be five years this week since Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy, triggering the biggest global financial crisis in modern history, Barnier said the supervisory mechanism was an
essential part of “rules to better protect European citizens and to prevent future crises.”
UK banks could need extra 50 billion pounds under ‘Basel IV’: KPMG
UK banks could need an extra 50 billion pounds to deal with extra capital requirements being layered on top of the incoming ‘Basel III’ package of global banking regulations, consultancy KPMG warned on Tuesday.
KPMG said the introduction of a ‘leverage ratio’ that requires banks to hold a minimum level of capital against their total assets, and restrictions on the way banks calculate the ‘risk-weighted’ assets which figure in regular capital adequacy ratios could together trigger the 50 billion pounds demand.
“The outlines of ‘BaselFour’ are already becoming visible, five years before the technical implementation deadline for Basel Three,” said Giles Williams, partner in Financial Services at KPMG. “Care needs to be taken that the banks are not being asked to do too much too soon.”
In June the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) ordered five of the UK’s biggest banks, including Barclays(BARC.L), Lloyds Banking Group (LLOY.L) and Royal Bank of Scotland
(RBS.L) to raise another 13.4 billion pounds of capital, on top of the 13.7 billion pounds they were already in the process of raising, Reuters reports.
The demand, which was based on the banks’ end 2012 positions, was triggered by a more conservative treatment of risk weighted assets, higher estimates for future losses and the introduction
of a 3 percent leverage ratio.
KPMG’s 50 billion pounds estimate is based on a common equity leverage ratio of 5 percent and a 20 percent increase in banks’ risk-weighted assets, as regulators restrict the use of internal
models that reduce risk-weighted assets, thereby boosting capital ratios.
Apple's shares fall on emerging market concerns
There are worries the new cheaper iPhone may still be relatively expensive for emerging market buyers
It launched two models on Tuesday, the iPhone 5S and a cheaper iPhone 5C.
But the basic 5C model, with 16 gigabytes of storage, has been priced at £469 ($740), which analysts said was still expensive for emerging markets.
Apple has found it tough to boost its share of those markets against competition from firms such as Samsung and Huawei.
"Investors were put off that Apple's price point didn't go low enough to attract a new market," said Mark Luschini, chief investment strategist at Janney Montgomery Scott.
"It doesn't have the same range in price that Apple's competitors have," he added.
Apple shares closed at $467.7 on Wednesday, down by 5.4%.
Apple has enjoyed tremendous success in developed markets with its iPhone models.
However, it has not been able to repeat that in emerging economies such as China and India, not least because its products are relatively more expensive.
One of the key reasons has been that unlike the developed markets, many mobile carriers do not subsidise phones in these countries.
That makes low-cost phones a much more affordable option for consumers. Many had hoped that Apple would launch a low-end phone to try to lure those buyers.
"The pricing on the iPhone 5C is simply not low enough to adequately address the significant global growth opportunity that we believe exists with unsubsidized prepaid customers that have not yet bought a smartphone," said Walter Piecyk, an analyst with BTIG Research.
"We believe Apple is foregoing a valuable and relatively easy way to return to earnings growth.
"The real question is whether Apple plans to ever go after these markets or rather just remain a high-end phone maker."
Investors had also been hoping for an announcement of a deal with China Mobile, the world's biggest phone company with nearly 700 million subscribers - who could be potential customers of Apple's phones.
Analysts said that the lack of any announcement also hurt investor sentiment.
Tablet shipments to exceed personal computers
Tablet-computer shipments will top personal computers for the first time in the fourth quarter, according to a new report by researcher IDC, as consumers continue to favour mobile devices over laptops and desktops.
Tablet shipments will hit 84.1 million units in the fourth quarter, compared with 83.1 million for PCs, according to data published by IDC Wednesday. The total market for Internet-connected devices of desktops, laptops, smartphones and tablets will rise 28 percent to $622.4 billion in 2013 and hit $735.1 billion by the end of 2015, the research group said.
The growth of smartphones and tablets is making up for a projected 10 percent decline in PC sales this year, Bloomberg reports. The shift to mobile devices is creating new winners and losers in the
technology industry. While Apple Inc. (AAPL), Google Inc. (GOOG) and Samsung Electronics Co. (005930) have benefited, stalwarts of the PC business such as Hewlett-Packard Co. (HPQ), Microsoft
Corp. (MSFT) and Intel Corp. (INTC) have seen stagnating sales.
As the market for smartphones and tablets matures, lower price models are becoming more popular, according to Framingham, Massachusetts-based IDC. Smartphones and tablets costing less than $350 will account for 68 percent of all connected-device shipments, the group said. The average selling price for the gadgets will shrink to $323 by 2017 from $462 last year, IDC said.
Austrian business delegation in Nigeria to explore investment opportunities
A 25-man delegation of the Austrian business community is in the country to understudy the business environment and seal partnership deals that would enable both countries and businesses to improve trade relations.
The team made up of people from diverse sectors of the economy including textiles, agriculture, energy, construction, financial services and construction industry met with their Nigerian counterparts under the umbrella body of the Nigerian Association of Chambers of Commerce, Industry, Mines and Agriculture.
The Austrians who were optimistic about Nigeria’s economic potential, particularly its population and abundant natural resources, emphasised the need for government to improve the state of infrastructure as critical factor to drive investment and economic growth.
The meeting which held at the Sheraton Hotels and Towers, Ikeja witnessed the signing of Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between NACCIMA and the Austrian Federal Economic Chamber (AFEC) with focus to promote the development of trade, investment and economic relations between Nigeria and the Republic of Austria.
The MoU signed by Christopher Leitl, president, AFEC, and Badaru Abubakar, president, NACCIMA, would specifically ensure regular exchange of non-confidential economic and trade information to strengthen trade and economic cooperation between Nigeria and Austria; inform each other of all activities that have the potential to further trade and investment between Nigeria and Austria; suggest and recommend partners for economic and trade cooperation and explore business opportunities for their respective member companies and to assist each other in company verifications and in the search for reliable and suitable business partners
Other expectations of the agreement include to assist each other in organising trade delegations, business meetings and participations in exhibitions and trade fairs; provide assistance for the amiable settlement of disputes that might arise between members of their respective organisations; cooperate in the global fight against fraud and corrupt practices; cooperate in the fight against illegal imports and counterfeiting of products; cooperate in the promotion of free trade, while the terms of cooperation of the memorandum are subject to resources and availability of time of both parties.
“The large turnout and quality of the companies participating in this visit reflect the growing importance of the Nigerian market for Austrian businesses,” Leitl said at the meeting.
According to him, Austria is best known for its textiles, popularly called “Austrian lace”, and its cultural and natural attributes as the home of classical music and great skiing and hiking. But what many do not know is that this small, German-speaking country situated in the centre of Europe is also one of the richest countries in the world with a thriving manufacturing sector.
Leitl stated further that Austria’s successful export products are primarily high quality machinery for industrial production and are used in most industries, from plastics to metallurgy. “Austria is also renowned for its know-how in the fields of renewable energy and environmental technology.”
By: Modestus Anaesoronye
Housing Market Recovering 'Beyond London'
Barratt Developments says it is witnessing queues for its housing schemes for the first time since the financial crisis.
The UK's biggest housebuilder says it is seeing recovery in the market beyond London and southeast England, with demand back at pre-financial crisis levels.
Barratt Developments said it now expected to deliver an estimated 45,000 new properties over the next three years.
Buyer appetite for its homes was so strong, the company said, that for some sites it was making five to 10 sales on the day of a scheme's launch.
Chief executive Mark Clare said: "We are seeing some very, very strong interest on new sites that we're launching around the country, even to the point where we're starting to see queues ... which is not something we have seen for many, many years."
He said cities such as Aberdeen, Edinburgh and Bristol were seeing particularly high levels of interest.
"Where we're opening, people are waiting to get into those new show homes," he said.
At the same time Barratt - the largest builder of its type in the UK by volume - reported a rise of almost 5% in annual pre tax profit to £104.8m.
When exceptional items - related to refinancing and a major write-down - of £87.5m were excluded, profits for the year to the end of June rose 74% to £192.3m.
Mr Clare added: "These are significantly improved results and we have had a very strong start to the new financial year.
"We are seeing the housing market recovery starting to spread beyond London and the south east with a 29.4% increase in our average net private reservation rate across the group."
Barratt said forward sales were up 44.4% to £880.4m at September 8.
It also confirmed it was continuing to see good opportunities to buy land that met its minimum standards of 25% return on capital.
Industry and official surveys have highlighted a revival in the housing market in recent months - a recovery largely credited to improvements in the economy and Government initiatives to help struggling buyers - Help-To-Buy and the Funding for Lending Scheme.
Critics of the measures have raised fears they risk creating a house price bubble - something the governor of the Bank of England Mark Carney has said he will watch for and prevent should such evidence materialise.
Toyota repeats US vehicle recall on suspension worries
Toyota is recalling 780,584 vehicles in the US for a second time to address a suspension defect that may not have been fixed after a recall last year.
The rear suspension arm in affected vehicles may rust, leading to eventual failure, if nuts are not tightened properly during service.
The US safety watchdog said this could “cause a loss of vehicle control, increasing the risk of a crash”.
The models affected are the RAV4 sportmutility vehicle and the Lexus HS 250h, the BBC reports.
The RAV4 models covered by the recall were manufactured between 2006 and 2011, and the Lexus vehicles affected are the ones made between October 2005 and September 2010.
Toyota first recalled the vehicles in August last year to carry out repairs on the affected parts.
However in a letter sent to dealers, which was posted on the safety agency’s website, Toyota said that it had received reports “indicating that some vehicles experienced symptoms of the recalled condition after being inspected or repaired”.
“Upon investigation, it was discovered that some inspections were not adequate and portions of the repair procedure may not have been performed correctly,” it added.
As part of the new inspection it has asked its dealers to replace suspension arms if any rust is found on them.
“After the inspection or replacement, the rear suspension alignment will be set and the arms will be sealed with an epoxy,” it said.
The carmaker said it would then apply labels on the arms to indicate that they are no longer adjustable.
The recall comes just as Toyota has been trying to rebuild its image after a spate of recalls due to safety concerns in the past few years.
Nigeria ranks 4th in global oil supply outages
By: FEMI ASU
With more than 200,000 barrels per day (bpd) of crude oil being lost to pipeline vandalism, crude oil theft and spills, Nigeria ranks fourth in the league of countries who contribute to global oil supply outages, estimates from analysts at Deutsche Bank and other shipping and industry sources, have shown.
According to the estimates, total global outages amount to 3.15 million bpd, about 3.5 percent of daily world oil demand of 90 million bpd.
Nigeria, Africa’s top oil producer, has had to grapple with upsurge in crude oil thefts and force majeures, resulting in frequent production shutdowns and massive oil leakages in recent time.
Only this week, Italian oil major Eni lifted a force majeure it imposed on its Nigerian Brass River crude oil production in March.
The company had in August said oil theft, sabotage and adverse natural events such as flooding have hurt its operations in Nigeria, amounting to a daily loss of 30,000 barrels of oil equivalent in the first half of the year, that’s equivalent to 2 percent of the company’s overall production in the period.
The analysis shows Libya as the country with the biggest outages, losing 1.2 million bpd due to strikes and protests, followed by Iran with 1.1 million bpd as a result of the US and European sanctions over nuclear programme.
In Syria, outages amount to 300,000bpd caused by civil war and Iraq lost 200,000bpd due to disruption to Northern pipeline. The estimates, compiled by Reuters, show South Sudan as having the least supply outages with 150,000bpd occasioned by political tension with Sudan.
Crude oil theft has continued to thwart Nigeria from coming near the 2.53 million bpd estimate in the 2013 budget, with huge revenue losses estimated at over $1.23 billion (N190bn) in the first quarter, according to the Nigerian National Petroleum Company.
Nigeria, which earns more than 90 percent of its foreign exchange and about 80 percent of government revenue from its oil industry, has seen decline in production and revenue in recent times. Government’s gross revenue dropped 42 percent month-on-month to N497.98 billion ($3.1bn) in July from N863.02 billion received in June, because of disruption to oil production caused by thieves hacking into pipelines.
CBN tightens noose on banks, classifies NNPC, JVCs as public funds
By JOHN OMACHONU & HOPE MOSES-ASHIKE
As the effects on the implementation of the 50 percent Cash Reserve Ratio (CRR) on public sector deposits bite harder, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) is further tightening the noose on banks by directing that deposits from Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) joint venture accounts, sovereign investment funds, be treated as public sector funds.
This directive also affects deposits from ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs), and companies’ collection accounts such as: Customs, Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), and the Pilgrim Welfare Board, as well as all accounts belonging to government universities.
However, the CBN redefinition of public sector funds does not affect deposits from the government institutions such as Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON), Bank of Industry (BoI), Nigerian Export-Import Bank (NEXIM), Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria (FMBN), Bank of Agriculture (BoA), and Bank of Infrastructure.
Other institutions to be excluded from the public sector funds include closed pension funds belonging to government institutions, state pension boards, government’s staff associations and co-operative societies.
Tokunbo Martins, director, banking supervision, CBN, in a letter to all banks released yesterday, said: “It would be recalled that in our circular under reference, DMBs were required to report government deposits as additional memorandum items in their Monthly Bank Return/Daily Bank Return (MBR 300/DBR 300) on e-FASS.
“Subsequent to the above, all DMBs are requested to note that, for the purposes of reporting in accordance with the provisions of the above circular, public sector deposits should include all Federal Government MDAs and Companies, State Government MDAs and Companies as well as
Local Government MDAs and their Companies.”
The CBN, under Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, in July took aim at the easy money at the disposal of Nigerian banks, as the apex bank introduced a 50 percent CRR on public sector deposits.
The higher CRR, which is the minimum balance the banks are expected to keep with the apex bank, is a tightening measure intended to check the present excess liquidity in the banking industry and stem the crowding out effect on private sector borrowing, as well as pre-empt potential increased government spending in the run-up to the 2015 elections.
North Korea, South Korea set to reopen Kaesong industrial park next week
(CNN)
-- North and South Korea have agreed to reopen their joint industrial park on a
trial basis next week, nearly five months after it was shut down, according to
a press release from the South's Unification Ministry.
The
Kaesong Industrial Complex is seen as a key symbol of inter-Korean cooperation.
According
to the press release, "companies will begin re-operation from September 16
on a test run."
The
date was set after hours of intense negotiations between the two sides.
The
complex was shuttered in April by North Korea amid soaring military tensions.
North
Korea expelled South Korean workers and suspended activity at the zone, which
sits on the North's side of the Koreas' demilitarized zone.
On
August 14, the two sides reached a five-point agreement to open the complex.
As
part of the agreement, both governments said the zone's operation would no
longer be "affected by political situations under any circumstance."
The
agreement also called for a joint panel to discuss compensating South Korean
companies hurt by the closing.
The
zone, which made its debut nine years ago, is considered an important source of
hard currency for North Korean leader Kim Jong Un's regime.
About
53,000 North Koreans worked at more than 120 South Korean companies at the
complex.
It
produced hundreds of millions of dollars worth of goods yearly.
HS2 Rail Link 'Will Boost Economy By £15bn'
The HS2 high-speed rail project will boost the UK economy by £15bn and will be completed within its £42.6bn budget, the Government is to claim.
New research shows the proposed link between London and cities in the Midlands and northern England will drive growth in the regions.
The announcement by Transport Secretary Patrick McLoughlin comes in the week the Commons spending watchdog issued a scathing report on the scheme.
It said the apparent benefits were dwindling as the costs spiralled.
Ministers' case for the massive project was based on "fragile numbers, out-of-date data and assumptions which do not reflect real life" with no evidence that it would aid regional economies rather than sucking even more activity into London, said the Public Accounts Committee report.
But Mr McLoughlin will point to a new analysis by KPMG, commissioned by HS2 Ltd, which shows that the boost to Birmingham's economy will be equivalent to 2.1% to 4.2% of the city region's GDP, there will be a 0.8% to 1.7% benefit to Manchester, 1.6% for Leeds and 0.5% for Greater London.
"It addresses that vital question: will HS2 create jobs and growth in the North and Midlands, where they are needed most? The answer is absolutely clear. Yes," he will say.
The Exchequer could benefit from £5bn a year in extra tax receipts as a result of the boost to the economy, KPMG said.
The Transport Secretary's speech forms part of a campaign announced by David Cameron to make the case for HS2 in the face of what he called an "unholy alliance" of sceptics.
Recent critics have included Labour's Alistair Darling who first approved it as chancellor, and the Institute of Directors which dismissed it as "a grand folly".
It is also fiercely opposed by some Tory MPs - many representing communities which will be disrupted by construction work and train noise along the route.
Dyson Sues Samsung Over 'Patent Infringement'
Dyson's
founder has angrily rounded on rival Samsung, accusing the South Korean firm of
'ripping off' a steering mechanism design for vacuum cleaners.
SIr James Dyson was speaking after the
company confirmed it had filed a claim at the High Court as it believed the
Samsung Motion Sync vacuum cleaner infringed its patent for an invention
entitled “A cleaning appliance with a steering mechanism”.
Samsung described the legal action as
"groundless".
Dyson said its case revolved the world’s
first cylinder vacuums with Ball technology which have a patented central
steering system "to give stable manoeuvring around tight turns, table legs
and sofas."
The firm explained that more
than 110 components were housed within the ball.
In his statement, Sir James said:
"This looks like a cynical rip off by the giant Korean company Samsung.
"Although they are copying Dyson's patented
technology, their machine is not the same.
"Samsung has many patent lawyers so I
find it hard not to believe that this is a deliberate or utterly reckless
infringement of our patent.
"We have been forced to issue
proceedings in the English High Court, but I would much rather invest in
research to develop new technology than have to sue".
Samsung launched the Motion Sync cleaner
in Europe at the IFA electronics fair in Berlin last week.
Its statement read: "The Samsung
Motion Sync is an outcome of our own extensive research and development.
"We
will take all necessary measures, including legal actions, to protect our
technological innovation against Dyson’s groundless claims.”
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