Ghana- Total Petroleum to pay interim dividend before Christmas: Total Petroleum Ghana Limited has projected an interim dividend of GHS0.0902 per share in respect of the 2016 financial year, expected to be paid on the 9th of December 2016. This could improve the liquidity position of TOTAL shareholders ahead of the Christmas period. With the per share price, the expected total dividend payout is GHS10.09 million based on the issued shares of 111.87 million shares. Reflecting a dividend payout ratio of 38.3% on the net income attributable to equity holders.
Kenya- Kenya’s Equity Bank sees mobile banking growth offsetting rate cap: The Kenyan Equity Bank Group announced strong growth in its mobile banking services help offset the country’s cap on lending rates, after posting an 18% rise in its pretax profits and net interest income surged by a third. The government had capped commercial lending rates at 4% points above the central bank’s lending rate in September, spooking foreign investors, who sold off bank shares. Through their mobile lending money subsidiary Equitel, the volume of loans disbursed on its mobile platform had increased to 30 billion Shillings at September ending from 1.6 billion in the same period in 2015.
Nigeria- Gross Official Reserves Decline by 580m USD in October 2016: Data from the CBN show that gross official reserves declined by US$580m in October on a 30-day moving average basis to US$24.0bn. The monthly average movement has been an outflow of US$490m over the past 12 months. The moving average basis dilutes the immediate impact of forward contract sales of FX by the CBN: it entered into three contracts (for one, two and three months) on 20 June and last week sought to sell US$500m under a fourth. Its spot sales are regularly less than US$5m daily; such is its need to slow the depletion of its reserves.
An extreme free market solution to the FX shortage would be to meet all demand and hope that, before reserves had fallen to a critical level, with confidence, restored, offshore investors had returned to Nigerian markets and autonomous inflows were on a scale to create the fully functioning FX regime predicted in the liberalization/devaluation in June.
In reality, autonomous (non-CBN) inflows to the interbank market remain modest, with the largest component still FX sales by the oil majors. Many of these transactions are with downstream players in the industry, which supports the availability of petroleum products but does not satisfy the demand of manufacturers and airlines.
| Country | 2016 GPD (USD ‘b) | 2015 P GDP Growth (%) | 2016 P GDP Growth (%) | Credit Rating |
| Ghana | 38.171 | 3.48% | 4.53% | B-/S&P, B/Fitch |
| Nigeria | 537.966 | 2.65% | 2.32% | B+/S&P, BB-/Fitch |
| Kenya | 64.688 | 5.59% | 5.98% | B+/S&P, B+/Fitch |
| Mauritius | 11.865 | 3.37% | 3.78% | Baa1/Moody’s |
Source: IMF World Economic Outlook Database (Apr. 2016), GDP (P- Projected)
Economic Rates
| Country | 91 Day T-Bill | 182 Day T-Bill | Inflation (%) | Policy Rate (%) |
| Ghana | 21.34% | 24.54% | 17.20% | 26.00% |
| Nigeria | 14.51% | 18.68% | 17.80% | 14.00% |
| Kenya | 7.69% | 10.28% | 6.34% | 10.50% |
| Mauritius | 2.48% | 2.65% | 1.00% | 4.00% |
Source: Various Central Banks.
Exchange Rates (Local Currencies against the USD)
| Country | Year Open 31-Dec-2015 | Week Close | YTD Change | YTD (%) |
| Ghana | 3.8011 | 3.96064 | 0.15954 | 4.19% |
| Nigeria | 196.899 | 314.677 | 117.778 | 59.81% |
| Kenya | 100.529 | 99.8424 | -0.6866 | -0.68% |
| Mauritius | 34.8304 | 34.4293 | -0.4011 | -1.15% |
Source: Oanda
Stock Market Performance
| Country | Year End 2015 | Week Close | Week Change | YTD Return (%) |
| Ghana | 1,994.91 | 1,706.19 | -288.72 | -14.47% |
| Nigeria | 28,642.25 | 26,981.60 | -1,660.65 | -5.80% |
| Kenya | 145.70 | 141.50 | -4.20 | -2.88% |
| Mauritius | 1,811.07 | 1,803.98 | -7.09 | -0.39% |
Source: Various Stock Exchanges
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