United Bank for Africa plc.

The just released financial summary of the bank for the period ended September 30, 2008 appears very impressive as its gross earnings moved in the northwards direction from N109.46 billion in 2007 to N169.58 billion in 2008 signifying an increase of 54.93 percent. Profit before tax grew by 82.38 percent from N31.15 billion in 2007 to N56.82 billion in 2008 while after tax profit stood at N40.83 billion comparable to N21.44 billion in 2007 indicating a growth of 90.42 percent.
Following the outcome of its results, the board of the bank is proposing a dividend of 75 kobo and a bonus issue of 1 for 4 to its investors with closure of register on the 16th of December. It would be recalled that during its half year, the bank had earlier paid its shareholders a dividend of 25 kobo and bonus issue of 1 for 2. This brings the total dividend payout for the year to N1.38 kobo which is greater than the N1.20 kobo it paid last year.

Guinness Nigeria plc.
The board of directors of the company has finally set out N8.849 billion to be used for dividend payment for its full year ended June 30th, 2008. The amount translates to a dividend payment of N6.00 per ordinary share. Payment begins from December 1, 2008.

The general idea behind these promotions is that customers are expected to save up to particular amount say ranging from N10,000 to N30,000 in some cases over a particular period of time, say 1-3 months. Successfully doing this qualifies the customer for a draw whereby they win gifts. The gifts range from cash prices, consumer home appliances, cars, sponsored trips abroad and so on.

This is no surprise as most of these banks have December as the end of their financial year and as such want to increase the size of their balance sheets by retaining customers deposits during this period. This is also evident as most of these promos would end by January/February 2009. This being the case, investors should expect a robust balance sheets from their banks as they release their full year 2008 financial results sometime in the first quarter of 2009.

Some banks currently running “save and win’ promos include UBA plc, Oceanic bank plc, Bank PHB and First Bank plc.

Continental Reinsurance plc posted its third quarter results for the period ended September 30, 2008 to the floors of the Exchange. Highlights of the results show that it grew its turnover by101.49 percent during the said period from N1.94 billion in the same period in 2007 to N3.91 billion in 2008. Profit before tax increased from N877 million in 2007 to N1.47 billion indicating an increase of 67.62 percent. While after tax profit appreciated by 67.53 percent from N658 million in 2007 to N1.10 billion in 2008.

The Board of Directors also ratified the appointment of Mr. Adekunle Abibu as the Managing Director of the company to champion the restructuring efforts. Speaking recently at a forum with shareholders, he traced the genesis of the company’s financial burden to inadequate working capital, a situation which led to the financial imbroglio that threatened the company’s continued existence. He expressed high optimism on the planned restructuring’s potential to turn around the trend in its bottom lines by 2008 financial year end.

Speaking further on the strategic approach to reposition the company on a path of profitability, the new boss emphasized that the company would be concentrating on its top five products in order to scale down its activities for profitable and optimal utilization of funds. Supporting this position was the Chairman, Mr. Folarin Williams, who pleaded with the shareholders pointing out that the company could not continue to work for the banks. In his words, “we will use the funds properly to position the company”.

Comparative breakdown of the just released results showed an increase in profit after tax of 263 percent from N257.04 million in the same period of 2007 to N1.07 billion in 2008. Profit before tax also experienced a growth of 241 percent from N302.25 billion in 2007 to N1.18 billion in 2008.

Gross premium increased to N3.15 billion in 2008 against N1.77 billion recorded in the same period of 2007 showing an increase of 34 percent. The company’s shareholders fund reached N24.16 billion from N6.51 billion in 2007 indicating a growth of 269 percent while its earned premium for the period under review stood at N2.06 billion against N1.58 billion in 2007.

Still on stock related matter’s the board of Total Nigeria plc has concluded plans to pay an interim dividend of N3.80 kobo to its investors.

In the period stated, gross earnings increased by 45.77 percent, from N66.50 billion in 2007 to N96.94 billion in 2008. Profit before tax was higher, as this figure increased by 55 percent. This brought the half year pre-tax profit to N30.04 billion in 2008 as against N19.33 billion realised in 2007. Consequently, after tax profit moved along the same line as this grew by 55.65 percent, from N15.27 billion in 2007 to N23.77 in 2008.

As most stocks have started experiencing some capital appreciation in the wake of the market rebound, the shares of the company have not been left out. As at the close of trading on Friday 14, November 2007,the share price closed at N28.32 with over 25 million units traded in 2,776 deals. This was the highest number of deals on any stock for the day, thereby indicating a high interest by investors in the bank.

Starcomms Plc
The company recently released its 9 month result for the period ended September 30, 2008. In the figures released to the public, turnover grew by 84 percent from N14.7 billion in 2007 to N27.13 billion in 2008.

This was to a large extent possible due to the 137 percent growth increase in subscriber base to 1.92 million during the period under review. The company also witnessed an increase in broadband active customer base by 144 percent. The company plans on expanding to 31 cities,20 states and about 140 towns before the end of 2008. All these are expecting to boost revenue,profits and shareholder value.

SEC approves Market Makers.

Still on market related issues, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has finally approved three companies to act as market makers for the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE). The three firms were chosen from about fifteen firms that have so far submitted applications to the monitoring body. Although their names have not been made public as at the time of this publication, there are indications that more companies would be given the go ahead very soon.

All these measures would most likely cause a renewed interest and return confidence in the capital market. The core duty of the market makers is to create liquidity in the market by buying up shares when there is a glut or making them available for purchase when they are scarce.

Leading the pack was First Bank Plc, bagging the quoted company of the year award for its continuing commitment to corporate governance standards and improved disclosure levels in financial reporting. Earlier this year, (sometime in February prior to the meltdown), the company was the first to have its capitalization cross the N1 trillion mark, attesting to a track record of leadership as far as shareholder value was concerned, in its sub-sector.

Details of the un-audited financials for the half year which ended on the 30th September 2008, revealed that the company increased its gross earnings by 45.8 per cent, up from N66.5bn in Q2 2007 to N96.9bn in Q2 2008. Its profit after tax also improved by 55.7 per cent to stand at N23.8bn in Q2 2008. The share price of First Bank Plc was not exempted from the free fall that left stocks shedding up to 60 per cent of their values. However, the price of this stock has since risen after doing an all year low of about N19.10, to close at N29.01 yesterday.

More than 5,000 years ago, in the ancient mystery schools of Egypt, the mental and spiritual laws and principles of success were taught to students who dedicated their entire lives to learning in what was called the “Esoteric Arts.”

One of these “secrets” was the Law of Attraction, which said that your mind is a magnet and that you invariably attract into your life people and circumstances in harmony with your dominant thoughts, especially your dominant thoughts emotionalized.

Today we say, “Like attracts like” and “Birds of a feather flock together.” From ancient times, it was known that your mind sends out vibrations, like radio waves, that are picked up by the minds of other people who are tuned into the same rate of vibration.

The force that determines the sending power of your mental vibrations is the amount of emotion, positive or negative, that you put behind a thought. If there is something that you intensely desire, something that excites you and enthuses you, you will send out powerful, high-frequency vibrations that can travel large distances in split seconds and cause your phone to ring from someone you have not heard from for months or even years.

Because your mind is so powerful, especially when backed by emotionalized thoughts, you must handle it carefully, like a child handling a gun. The Law of Attraction is neutral. It works on both positive and negative thoughts. It brings into your life whatever you are thinking about on a regular basis with either fear or desire.

When the book, “The Secret” came out, along with the movie, I was happily surprised to see that the first half of the movie comes from my audio program and seminar, “The Psychology of Achievement” which was produced initially in 1981. We videotaped the live seminar which explains the Law of Attraction along with thirty-one other laws, plus how this law is applied in every area of life, and then distributed the video seminar world wide, including New Zealand, where the Author of The Secret comes from.

The weakness in The Secret is that it is “necessary but not sufficient.” Of course, it is important that you think positive thoughts and that, by so doing, you will attract positive people and circumstances into your life. But it is not enough.

In response to The Secret, I decided to write a book which is called “Flight Plan — The Real Secret of Success.” In this book, I explain that life is very much like a long distance flight. When the plane takes off, it will be off course 99% of the time. But nonetheless, the plane will eventually arrive at its destination, even thought it was off course most of the time.

In my experience, the real secret of success consists of three major factors: First, you must be absolutely clear about your destination. By this I mean that must have clear, written, specific, measurable goals, committed to paper and organized into specific, step-by-step plans of action.

Before you can set your goals, you must know exactly who you are and what you want. You must do a thorough analysis of yourself, your life, your hopes, your dreams, your ambitions, and where you want to be sometime in the future. Then, you create a “Flight Plan” to get you from wherever you are today to wherever you want to be in the months and years ahead.

The second part of Flight Plan is that you must “take off!” You must have the courage to step out in faith with no guarantee of success. You must be prepared to launch in the face of your fears, doubts and natural reluctance to break out of your comfort zone. “To achieve something that you have never achieved before, you must be prepared to do something that you have never done before.” (Les Brown).

Once you have launched toward your goal, like an airplane, you will meet with unexpected turbulence, headwinds, updrafts and downdrafts, lightning, storms and every sort of mechanical problem. You must be prepared to make continual “course corrections” as you move toward your goal.

Perhaps the most important quality for success is, and always has been, the quality of persistence. You must resolve in advance to persist in the face of any difficulty or problem that you experience. You must resolve in advance that you will never give up. You must resolve in advance that you will view every temporary setback or difficulty as merely a signal that you need to make a “course correction” as you move inevitably toward your goal.

This is a great time to be alive. The very best days of your life lie ahead of you. The highest income of your life is still to come. The greatest experiences of your life are still to be experienced.

There is very little that you can not accomplish if you will file your flight plan. Determine exactly what it is that you want to achieve, take off toward your goal with no guarantees of success, and then make continual course corrections until you finally succeed. If you resolve to do these things, nothing can stop you from creating an extraordinary life.

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