Manchester City group sells 13% to Chinese investors

City Football Group (CFG) has sold the stake to CMC (China Media Capital) and investment company Citic Capital.

It comes after six months of talks and is aimed at expanding CFG's interests in the Chinese football industry.

New shares will be issued in CFG in addition to those held by its owner, Abu Dhabi United Group (ADUG).

 

Chinese state visit

Nigeria Financial markets suffer after JP Morgan index expulsion

Nigeria’s stocks sunk on Wednesday after JP Morgan said it would eject Africa’s biggest economy from its influential emerging markets bond index due to tough controls imposed to prevent a currency collapse.

In a move that came earlier in the year than expected, JP Morgan said late on Tuesday it would remove the bond listings belonging to the West African nation by the end of October, forcing fund managers to sell Nigerian bonds, which might raise the country’s borrowing costs.

JP

The decision is a blow to President Muhammadu Buhari, who has promised to diversify an oil-dependent economy hit by a slump in global crude prices but who faces criticism for not having appointed a cabinet since his inauguration on May 29.

With no finance minister in place, foreign investors have been left wondering about government policies and struggling to sell shares or bonds as the central bank adopted tough currency restrictions to halt a slide of the naira.

Anders Faergemann, senior sovereign portfolio manager at PineBridge Investments, said he was surprised that Buhari had not started tackling the country’s economic problems more than three months into his tenure.

“As an investor it is flabbergasting that the Nigerian authorities have allowed themselves to be put in this situation,” he said.

All Nigerian stocks listed in the MSCI frontier market index fell by more than 3 percent, while bond yields spiked across maturities.

While many foreign bonds investors have exited the market since JP Morgan warned Nigeria in January and again in June that it would get kicked out of the index unless conditions improved, stocks investors were now also pondering whether to stay.

UK Prudential, S/African Liberty, 10 others push for Nigerian insurance market

Top international insurance firms, among them, Liberty Group of South Africa and Prudential Life Company of UK are at advanced stages in their push to enter the Nigerian insurance market, BusinessDay investigations show.

The firms which have expressed the desire to position in Nigeria which is expected to lead the continent’s underwriting market in the next two years, ahead South Africa and Egypt, are already meeting regulatory authorities.

BusinessDay investigations show that 12 other foreign firms are currently in talks with the regulator, the National Insurance Commission (NAICOM) in the quest for a stake in the country’s growing market.

NAICOM is however said to favour  investors in search of acquisitions, rather than those looking for  new licenses.

The development is expected to make the market which currently ranks second in the continent, behind South Africa, to take the lead.

Nigeria’s insurance industry, with 60 underwriters, raked in over N300 billion premium in 2013 on the strength of growing confidence and adherence to strict corporate governance, which now endears it to foreign direct investors.

“In the last six months, we have had more than 12 enquiries from foreign companies that want to operate here and we have told them that we are not giving out new licenses but we prefer the acquisition of an existing company” said Fola Daniel, the insurance commissioner.