Nigerian companies to watch in 2016

Due to the activities that took place last year in various companies, Businessday has compiled a list of top five companies with potentials to do big things in 2016 after speaking with some analysts.

Dangote Cement

Nigeria’s biggest cement maker, Dangote cement last year expanded its frontier of business portfolio when it opened cement plants in Ethiopia Zambia, Senegal, South Africa and Cameroon.

The firm is also planning to build more cement plants in 18 African countries, including Nepal in Asia to make the continent import-dependent free and major exporter of cement.

The company invested more $5 billion to build an African cement empire which will provide millions of jobs in the continent.

Sigma Pensions

Last year, a private equity firm Actis acquired a majority stake in Nigerian leading fund administrator Sigma Pensions for $62 million.

Actis said it saw significant potential in the asset management industry in Nigeria and was willing to support emerging market consumers to secure their future by saving and investing appropriately.

FBN Holdings

FBN Holdings is expected to add a new operating momentum to the business in 2016 with a new management already waiting to engineer a turnaround from day one of 2016.

The new management will have to bring in innovative approaches to deal with two major cost increases that have undermined the bank’s profit capacity at the moment. These are impairment charges for loan losses and interest expenses, which are claiming much of the increase in the bank’s earnings.

A change in the cost-income ratio needs to happen to reinforce profit capacity.

MTN Nigeria

In terms of size and sphere of influence in the Nigerian telecoms sector, MTN Nigeria stands out as one of the players to watch out for in 2016. With its recent acquisition of Visafone, a leading CDMA operator in the country, MTN has the potential to do big things in 2016.

The acquisition is expected to provide MTN the robust voice and data platform of Visafone and cater for the booming Internet population in Nigeria.

MTN’s acquisition of Visafone is expected to improve broadband penetration in the country from about 8 percent to the targeted 30 percent in 2018.

According to a World Bank survey, the availability of 4G Lite services would improve the e-commerce sector, banking; insurance and financial services, software and IT enabled services and most likely widen the revenue base of the federal government into non-oil sectors.