Five things to know to start your day

Buhari’s timeline at UK-Africa investment summit

The UK-Africa investment summit begins today in London with Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari in attendance.

The summit is hosted by the British Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, and is expected to bring together African leaders, international business chief executives, and heads of international organisations.

Apart from highlighting new perspectives on UK-Africa Partnership for Prosperity, issues of Sustainable Finance and Infrastructure; Trade and Investment; Future African Growth Sectors and Clean Energy and Climate, are expected to dominate presentations and discussions during the Summit.

President Buhari is accompanied by Governors Muhammad Inuwa Yahaya and Okezie Ikpeazu of Gombe and Abia States, as well as foreign affairs minister, Geoffrey Onyeama.

While in the United Kingdom, Buhari will hold a meeting with the Head of the Commonwealth, Prince Charles in Glasgow, Scotland.

The president and his delegation will also have bilateral meetings with Prime Minister Johnson as well as heads of multilateral organisations.

He is expected back in Abuja next Thursday.
Since arriving in London, Buhari has met British professional boxer with Nigerian descent, Anthony Joshua.

Davos 2020: It’s one day to go

At least 119 billionaires are converging on Switzerland to join bankers, politicians and other grandees for their annual pilgrimage to the Alps.

The elite group, worth about $500 billion, includes regulars like Bridgewater Associates LP founder Ray Dalio, Blackstone Group Inc. Chairman Steve Schwarzman, JPMorgan Chase & Co. Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon and Africa’s richest man Aliko Dangote of the Dangote Group.

Billionaires slated to attend the Davos meeting with begins Tuesday hail from at least 36 countries.
They appear on a guest list of more than 2,000 names, representing roughly 100 countries, for the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos.

The event retains its enduring status as the premier networking hub for the world’s wealthiest — with its attendant flock of private jets.

“I’ve been going since 1979,” said India’s Rahul Bajaj, who will be making his 40th appearance at the event. “It’s grown a great deal since then but I continue to get a lot out of the meetings, the sessions, the surroundings.”

This year’s theme is “Stakeholders for a Cohesive and Sustainable World,” and panels include “Balancing Domestic and Global Inequality” and “Breaking Legal Barriers to Equality.”

“The World Economic Forum in Davos is the only place of its kind where you can simultaneously meet heads of state, captains of global business and public opinion leaders,” Russian mining magnate Alisher Usmanov, an occasional attendee, said. “It is noteworthy that the forum has remained like this for half a century. This is a unique melting pot of ideas and opportunities.”
Business Day will be bringing you daily coverage from Davos.

TCN cuts off Maiduguri from power grid

The Transmission Company of Nigeria on Sunday announced that Maiduguri and its environs had been cut off from the national power grid.

It said the Borno State capital was removed from the grid on Friday due to damages to TCN’s equipment by insurgents.

The General Manager, Public Affairs, TCN, Ndidi Mbah, said, “The incident affected the 330kV transmission line between Maiduguri and Damaturu.

Agric non-performing loans up 3%

The non-performing loans in the agriculture sector rose by 3.37 per cent to N49.96 billion as of the end of September 2019 from N48.33 billion a year ago.

According to state data agency, the National Bureau of Statistics, the non-performing loans in the banking sector stood at N1.1 trillion in the period under review.

Access Bank acquires 100% of Kenya’s Transnational Bank

Nigeria’s biggest lender, Access Bank, has acquired 100 percent of a Kenyan Bank with 28 branches, the East African country’s Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) said at the weekend.

Patrick Njoroge, the governor of the central bank in Kenya, said last September that he expected consolidation in the industry to continue, adding that market-driven tie-ups were working.

The acquisition comes amid Access Bank’s plans to expand its frontiers in Africa with Mozambique and Sierra Leone among countries pencilled down.

The tier-one bank has operations in seven African countries and Britain as wells as representative offices in China, United Arab Emirates, Lebanon and India.

The Central Bank of Nigeria had on Wednesday given ‘No Objection’ to the bank’s moves to open a subsidiary in Cameroon.