Hello and welcome to Nairametrics’ Corporate News Roundup.
It’s time to summarise the major company news stories that dominated the headlines during the week that ended November 26, 2022. This newsletter is brought to you courtesy of Quidax.
Let’s begin with the main stories…
More job losses in the tech ecosystem
Unfortunately, the tough economic realities in Nigeria are forcing more tech startups to downsize. The latest to do so is Quidax, one of Nigeria’s leading crypto exchange platforms. Last week, the company announced that it has laid off about 20 of its staff, representing 25% of its workforce.
To avoid misunderstanding, Quidax clarified that the layoffs are not in connection with the FTX saga. The company said it has no relationship with the troubled American crypto exchange. Instead, the decision to lay off the workers was mainly due to the effect of Nigeria’s economic downturn.
Another tech company that might be downsizing its workforce anytime soon is Jumia. The e-commerce giant announced drastic measures to significantly reduce its operating costs. As part of these measures, Jumia said it would reduce its staff costs by creating a “leaner” team.
The loss-making company said the measures would help it to reduce its losses and move towards profitability. Other strategies the company would be adopting discontinuing its First Party grocery offerings in geographies where it remains sub-scale and reviewing its free shipping programme.
Another exit from Nigeria
Meanwhile, SweepSouth said it will shut down its Nigerian operation effective from November 25, 2022. The South African cleaning services startup explained that its decision to exit Nigeria was due to the ‘unfavourable global macroeconomic development’. The move is coming just months after the company launched its operations in Nigeria.
SweepSouth is the second South African company to announce its exit from Nigeria in the past month. Last month, Game Store announced that it will leave the country by December 25, 2022.
In deals news…
Gasco Marine Limited, a fully integrated indigenous gas company, announced last week that it would be expanding its gas delivery service into three more regions across the country. The regions are South-West, South-South, and Northern parts of the country.
Expanding delivery capacity will help the company to deliver gas to power-generating companies, industrial plants and other businesses across the regions mentioned above.
Leading real estate company, Purple Real Estate Income Plc, launched an initial public offering (IPO) last week. Nairametrics reported that the offer was for 2,000,000,000 ordinary shares of N0.50 each at N5 per share.
The IPO was launched on 21 November 2022 and will close on 23 December 2022. The company said expects to raise about N10 billion from the IPO.
Dangote Sugar said it’s in the process of boosting its $700 million Numan sugar plantation in Adamawa State, expanding it by 179% to 24,200 hectares. The expansion would boost the plantation’s sugar refining capacity from 3,000 tons per day to 6,000, 9,800 and 15,000.
The Chairman of the company and President of the Dangote Group, Alhaji Aliko Dangote, disclosed this while flagging off the 2022/2023 Crushing Season and Outgrower Scheme Awards in Numan, Adamawa State.
In other news…
Findings by Nairametrics showed that Nigeria’s leading insurance firms generated N180.2 billion worth of revenue between January and September, indicating a 23.22% increase compared to the N146.2 billion they collectively generated during the comparable period in 2021.
The top six insurers are Nem Insurance Plc, Coronation Insurance Plc AXA-Mansard Plc and AIICO Insurance Plc, Consolidated Hallmark Insurance Plc and Coronation Insurance Plc.
Nigerian payment infrastructure company, Kora, was last week acquitted of all the fraud allegation charges initially filed against it by the Asset Recovery Agency of Kenya.
Nairametrics reported that Kora was cleared by the Kenyan Directorate of Criminal Investigation which said it could not establish any case against the Nigerian company after its investigations.
Meanwhile, Victoria Yemisi Imasi, the CEO of Yellowpoint Group, has been declared wanted by the police. This followed a warrant of arrest issued by the Magistrate/High Court of Lagos.
The 46-year-old is wanted for fraud, obtaining money under false pretence, and stealing in Lagos.
Lastly on today’s corporate news roundup, Stanbic IBTC Holdings Plc announced the appointment of Babatunde Omotowa as an independent non-executive director.
A corporate disclosure by the company described Omotowa as an international leader in the energy sector across Europe, Africa, the United States of America, Asia, and the Middle East, in organizational leadership, commercial, strategy, and operational roles spanning over 26 years.