Fairfax Holdings through its African investment arm, Fairfax Africa Holdings has agreed to a merger with Helios Holdings limited, the Africa-focused private equity firm co-founded by Tope Lawani and Babatunde Soyoye for the purpose of investments in sub-Saharan Africa. 

When the deal is completed, Fairfax Africa Holdings will be renamed Helios Fairfax Partners Corporation and the company will remain listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange and the Helios co-founders will be joint Chief Executives of the new company. 

Helios will exchange 45.6% of equity and voting interest in the new company and will contribute its performance and management fees through its present and future holdings under the Helios funds, making Helios Fairfax Partners Corporation one of the biggest Africa focused asset management firms, complementing the experiences and funds of both companies under one umbrella. 

The new company will also have a larger capital base for diversified investment inflows to the continent through years of experience in third-party investment management operations and the support of longer-term institutional shareholders. 

Tope Lawani disclosed that the deal will offer emerging market investors the opportunity to gain exposure to the continent through their portfolio. “We take a long-term view on our investments, and many have proved resilient even in this pandemic with a number of our investments in sectors such as telecommunications, payments, and food,” Lawani said. 

He added that the transaction will offer Helios access to permanent capital from equity markets that can be used to accelerate its product and growth strategy.

Helios founded in 2004, has raised third party private capital for the past 15 years investing in Africa companies including First City Monument Bank (exiting in 2013), Interswitch, Vivo Energy and Helios Towers Plc. 

Fairfax was founded by Canadian Billionaire Prem Watsa and will own 45.6% of the Helios Fairfax Partners Corporation. Before the merger, Helios was raising $1.25 billion for its Africa focused fund and had landed a commitment of $100 million from the U.K’s CDC Group. 

The spread of novel Corona Virus Disease (COVID-19) in Nigeria continue to record significant increase as the latest statistics provided by the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control reveal Nigeria now has 31,323 confirmed cases.

On the 10th of July 2020, 575 new confirmed cases and 20 deaths were recorded in Nigeria, having carried out a total daily test of 3,725 samples across the country.

To date, 31,323 cases have been confirmed, 12,795 cases have been discharged and 709 deaths have been recorded in 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory. A total of 175,656 tests have been carried out as of July 10th, 2020 compared to 171,931 tests a day earlier.

COVID-19 Case Updates- 10th July 2020,

• Total Number of Cases – 31,323
• Total Number Discharged – 12,795
• Total Deaths – 709
• Total Tests Carried out – 175,656

According to the NCDC, the 575 new cases are reported from 18 states- Lagos (224), Oyo (85), FCT (68), Rivers (49), Kaduna (39), Edo (31), Enugu (30), Delta (11), Niger (10), Katsina (9), Ebonyi (5), Gombe (3), Jigawa (3), Plateau (2), Nassarawa (2), Borno (2), Kano (1), Abia (1)

Meanwhile, the latest numbers bring Lagos state total confirmed cases to 12,051, followed by Abuja (2,433), Oyo (1,689), Edo (1,593), Delta (1,348), Rivers (1,343), Kano (1,303), Ogun (1,063),  Kaduna (946), Katsina (655), Ondo (606), Borno (586), Gombe (527), Bauchi (519), Ebonyi (508), Plateau (499), Enugu (469), Abia (402),  Imo (359), Jigawa (321).

Kwara state has recorded 311 cases, Bayelsa (299), Nasarawa (238), Osun (212), Sokoto (153), Niger (135), Akwa Ibom (134), Benue (121), Adamawa (100), Anambra (93), Kebbi (86), Zamfara (76), Yobe (62), Ekiti (46), Taraba (27), while Kogi and Cross River state have recorded 5 cases each.

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Lock Down and Curfew

In a move to combat the spread of the pandemic disease, President Muhammadu Buhari directed the cessation of all movements in Lagos and the FCT for an initial period of 14 days, which took effect from 11 pm on Monday, 30th March 2020.

The movement restriction, which was extended by another two-weeks period, has been partially put on hold with some businesses commencing operations from May 4. On April 27th, 2020, Nigeria’s President, Muhammadu Buhari declared an overnight curfew from 8 pm to 6 am across the country, as part of new measures to contain the spread of the COVID-19. This comes along with the phased and gradual easing of lockdown measures in FCT, Lagos, and Ogun States, which took effect from Saturday, 2nd May 2020, at 9 am.

On Monday, 29th June 2020 the federal government extended the second phase of the eased lockdown by 4 weeks and approved interstate movement outside curfew hours with effect from July 1, 2020.

READ ALSO: Bill Gates says Trump’s WHO funding suspension is dangerous

Nigeria’s Minister of Finance, Zainab Ahmed revealed that Nigeria was only able to meet 56% of its target revenue from January to May as the global oil price crash affected government revenue due to the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Nigeria’s earnings in the period were N1.48 trillion which is 56% off its main target, crude oil revenues accounted for half of Nigeria’s revenues, while non-oil revenues made up the rest in the first 5 months of the year. 

On Friday, President Muhammadu Buhari signed the new 2020 revised budget of N10.8 trillion with the crude oil benchmark reduced from $57 per barrels in the earlier budget to $25 in the new budget.

The Minister said the budget had to be revised because of the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on Nigeria’s economy. She added that Nigeria’s crude oil production would be an average of 1.86 million barrels per day next year and rise to 2.09 million the following year. 

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 “Although Nigeria’s total production capacity is 2.5 million barrels per day, current crude production is about 1.4 million barrels per day — in compliance with the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries’ production quota – and an additional 300,000 barrels per day of condensates, totaling about 1.7 million barrels per day,” she said.