Google Declares a Dividend

Good morning and welcome to this week’s edition of 4 Customs Street, our weekly newsletter on the stock market.

The newsletter is divided into two:?

Green White Green—focused on the Nigerian stock market.?

Star-Spangled Banner—focused on the US stock market?

Green White Green Last Week

Stanbic IBTC, Transcorp Power, Total, Transcorp, Okomu and Presco were marked down during the week. A markdown is when a stock’s share price is adjusted downwards either for a dividend or bonus.

MRS on its way out?

MRS Oil will hold a shareholders meeting on May 21 to consider terms and conditions of its voluntary delisting from the stock exchange as well as amending its memart (memorandum and articles of association) to authorise share buy backs and capital reduction.

Proposed buyout price is not less than ?135 per share (being the highest price the stock has traded at in the last 6 months)

Suspended?

Dangote Sugar Refinery's proposed merger with NASCON Allied Industries Plc and Dangote Rice Limited (“DRL”) has been suspended given the recommendation of the Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC) on the status of Dangote Rice Limited.

Earnings?

Nigerian Breweries net loss went up by 391% from N10.7 billion in? Q1 2023 to ?52 billion in Q1 2024. In its earnings release, the firm attributed this to increased interest rates resulting from the upward adjustments in monetary policy rates and continued volatility in the foreign exchange market.

Guinness Nigeria recorded a ?61.6 billion loss as of 9M 2024 due to higher finance expenses.

Stanbic IBTC Q1 profit went up from ?28.8 billion in 2023 to ?45.6 billion in 2024. Decent uptick in interest and non-interest income.

Flattish profit at Dangote Cement?

Dangote Cement Group revenues were up 101% from ?406 billion in 2023 to ?816 billion in 2024. Profit after tax rose marginally from ?109 billion in 2023 to ?112 billion in 2024, due to higher taxes.?

Key drivers were higher production volumes (up 26% in Nigeria) and price increases.?

Green White Green This Week

What’s happening this week on the NGX??

Seplat will be releasing its Q1 2024 numbers today. We should have a few other earnings filed as well.

Dangote Cement has an earnings call on Tuesday to discuss its Q1 2024 numbers

UAC Nigeria's board will meet today to consider its Q1 2024 numbers.?

Star-Spangled Banner Last Week?

Alphabet? pays a dividend?

Alphabet (parent company of Google) released its first quarter results and they came in better than expected. There was strong growth in cloud and YouTube revenue.?

The company also proposed its first dividend of 20 cents which it will pay on June 17. Qualification date for the dividend is June 10.?

If you are a content creator, you should take out time to listen to the earnings call.?

Tiktok vs the US?

US President Joe Biden signed a bill that will force a US ban on social media app TikTok unless it is divested (sold) from its Chinese parent, ByteDance (BDNCE), within about a year.

Star-Spangled Banner This Week

A few big hitters will be dropping their earnings. They include Apple, Amazon and Starbucks. Other prominent names doing so include Coinbase, Pfizer, and Mastercard.?

The Fed (US Central Bank) will be meeting during the week. Expectations are that the interest rate will be left flat. The bigger question people would want to know is when those rates will go up, and what factors would lead to that happening.?

Japanese Yen weakens to 160 for the first time

The Japanese Yen early today weakened to 160 against the dollar for the first time since 1990. A weaker Yen simply means that you will need more Yen to buy a dollar. One of the reasons behind the weakening is a stronger dollar.?

A stronger dollar simply means you would need more money in your local currency to purchase a dollar (and that includes the naira). The stronger dollar is due to the relatively better health of the US economy (compared to the rest of the world) and the impending increase in interest rates.

The upside for the Japanese is that exports will earn them more income (since 1 dollar will give more yen).?