Less than 14 of the nation’s 34 Free Trade Zones (FTZs) are operating, actively, the Managing Director (MD) of the Nigeria Export Processing Zones Authority (NEPZA), Rt. Hon. Emmanuel Jime, disclosed at the weekend.

INVESTORS appear to have set off speculated positioning on the stock of  Seven-Up Bottling Company Plc (7UP), against the acquisition offer price. Last weekend the stock price moved up almost 5 percent on 141,000 trade volume on a single day trade to close at N101.97, leaving just 11.05 percent premium for any new buyer who may be holding the shares to sell off under the acquisition scheme.

Loan recovery is a very major challenge in the Microfinance Bank, MfB, sub-sector. It is not just microfinance, but in the entire banking industry. The stress and distress in the economy have made so many things to be abnormal and thereby made people to be unable to pay back loan.

We are having a programme early next year. It is a business outlook and we are getting an expert who will analyze the insurance opportunities that are in the 2018 budget. The issue is that insurance penetration is dependent on insurance enlightenment and in as much as we have over 180 million people, we have a duty to ensure that they know about insurance.

If you look at the results of most insurance players over the past nine months you could see an increase for the entire industry largely on the non-life business. Most of that is driven by oil while some is driven by the impact of devaluation as well.