Fastjet, the African budget airline backed by EasyJet founder Stelios Haji-Ioannou, has agreed to create a low-cost airline operating within Nigeria and across Africa with Nigeria's Red 1 Airways. Fastjet said on Thursday it had signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Red 1 and that it planned to take a minority shareholding in the entity to be known as Fastjet Nigeria. The capital required for the ventur ...

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) cashless policy will soon take off in five other states of the federation and the Federal Capital Territory. At a meeting in Abuja on Tuesday, the Bankers Committee listed Ogun, Anambra, Rivers, Abia, and Kano as the next states to get a feel of the policy which began in Lagos as a pilot scheme. The committee also warned Nigerians not to patronize owners of wonder banks, de ...

Chevron has announced plans to sell its interest in two Nigerian shallow-water oil mining leases. Nigeria's third-largest crude oil producer says selling leases OML 83 and OML 85 is “part of a continuous process of portfolio evaluation and business prioritization. The two blocks OML 83 and OML 85 hold an estimated 200 million barrels of oil and an unknown amount of natural gas but there has been no producti ...

The Minister of Petroleum, Mrs. Diezani Alison-Madueke, on Tuesday, failed to show up for her session at the ministerial platform where other ministers have been delivering their score cards for over a week. Giving reasons for the Minister’s absence, the Minister of Information, Mr Labaran Maku, explained that the Petroleum Minister would prefer to make an appearance with the Minister of Power, Professor Ch ...

The Nigerian unit of South Africa's Standard Bank said on Tuesday it expected its pretax profit for the third quarter to hit N4.38 billion ($27.4 mln), compared with N3.14 billion in the same period last year. The lender said gross earningswill be N21.52 billion in the three-months to September 2013, up 17 percent from N18.4 billion  in the same period a year ago, it said in a filing with the Nigerian Stock ...

Nigeria's Guaranty Trust Bank said on Tuesday it expected its pretax profit for the third quarter to hit N20.7 billion ($129 mln), compared with N21.9 billion  in the same period last year. The lender said gross earnings will be N41.25 billion  in the three-months to September 2013, down 42 percent from N70.52 billion in the same period a year ago, it said in a filing with the Nigerian Stock Exchange. ...

Union Bank said on Tuesday it first quarter pre-tax profit rose 40.33 percent to N7.69 billion ($48.08 million), compared with N5.48 billion in the same period last year. It gave no reason for the rise. Gross earningsdropped marginally to N29.79 billion from N29.84 billion the same period last year, the bank said in a statement. ...

Following regulatory and legal approvals of the business combination between Custodian and Allied Insurance Plc and Crusader Nigeria Plc, the merged entity, known as Custodian and Allied Plc, has embarked on restructuring the organisation, with the integration of skills, information technology (IT), harmonisation of products and services, and back office processes which will be to the advantage of customers ...

The Coordinating Minister of the Economy and Finance Minister, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala held up a sponge cake representing GDP to an audience of amused officials on Monday, as she sought to rebuff critics who say Nigeria's strong economic growth has failed to lift millions out of poverty. Likening Nigeria to a household, she urged the country to focus on the government's plan to become one of the world's top 20 ...

A new report by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) predicts that the number of unemployed persons globally could rise to 208 million by 2015, a hike from the current 200 million unemployed people across the world. According to the world of work report, the ILO discloses that high levels of labour market imbalances in developing countries and long-term unemployment in advanced economies will remain ...