Good morning and welcome to this week’s edition of Bulls and Bears. This is a weekly thread where i look at happenings on the NGX and US equity space. If you have any questions, please feel free to share. You can also send your questions to info@greentickertales.com

NGX last week 

It was a positive week on the NGX, as the All Share Index gained 0.87%. The index measures the average performance of stocks on the exchange. 

CHellarams was the best performing stock last week. It gained 60.44% opening at N4.07 and closed at N6.53.

Veritas Kapital led the losers. The stock declined by 29.68%, opening at N1.55 and closed at N1.09.

GTCO and FCMB Group had additional shares listed during the week. The shares arose from their public offers which held last year. 

GTCO had a public Offer of 9,000,000,000 ordinary shares at N44.50 per share (The offer was 52.29% subscribed). With the listing of the additional 4,705,800,290 ordinary shares, the total issued and fully paid up shares of Guaranty Trust Holding Company Plc has now increased from 29,431,179,224 to 34,136,979,514 shares. 

FCMB Group had a public Offer of 15,197,289,219  shares  at N7.30 per share (The offer was 130.30% subscribed). With the listing of the additional 19,802,710,781 ordinary shares, the total issued and fully paid-up shares of FCMB Group Plc has now increased from 19,802,710,754 to 39,605,421,535 shares. 

Exits

Tourist Company of Nigeria Plc; and Union Homes Savings and Loans shares were delisted from Nigerian Exchange Limited (NGX) effective Friday, 31 January 2025 on the grounds that they are operating below the listing standards of NGX, and their securities are no longer considered suitable for continued listing and trading in the market: 

Earnings 

We had a bunch of earnings drop during the week. The most prominent on the Nigerian end being Airtel Africa which dropped its earnings for the nine months ended December 2024. The company same day held an earnings call. 

The bulk of questions were around operations in Nigeria and the listing of its mobile money unit. 

Q4 2024 earnings were mostly positive for the firms that dropped theirs.

Cornerstone Insurance FY 24

Q4 2024 the firm recorded a N1.8 billion loss. As against N2.3 billion profit in the prior year. 

For the full year profit after tax went up by 61.2% from N14 billion in 2023 to N22.6 billion in 2024. 

Q3 and Q4 numbers were in the red. Im bearish on this stock because Q1 and Q2 numbers had fx gains as a tailwind. Wont repeat itself this year. 

Academy Press 9M numbers

Academy Press dropped its results for the 9 months ended December 2024. Revenue was essentially flat (up 0.5%) to N3.1 billion. The firm returned to profit with a profit after tax of N229 million as against a N265 million loss recorded in 9M 2023.

Industrial and Medical GasesQ4 2024

IMG (formerly known as BOC Gas) had a soft Q4 due to lower fx gains. Profit after tax dipped from N355 million in 2023 to N56.5 million in 2024

FY 2024 unaudited numbers show decent topline and bottomline increase. Revenue rose by 36% from N6 billion in 2023 to N8.2 billion in 2024. Profit after tax went up by 92% from N852 million in 2023 to N1.6 billion in 2024. 

Beta Glass Q4  profit went up by more than 4X from N1.1 billion in 2023 to N5.5 billion in 2024. 
FY 24 unaudited revenue went up by over 86% from N62.9 billion in 2023 to N117.5 billion in 2025. Profit after tax rose by over 100% from N6.4 billion in 2023 to N12.8 billion in 2024.

Board and management changes

Uche Orji  has been appointed as an Independent Non-Executive Director of Access Holdings subsidiary, Access Bank Plc , effective from January 7, 2025, following the approval of the Central Bank of Nigeria (‘CBN’).

Orji is a renowned investment banking professional, information technology entrepreneur, and finance expert with three (3) decades of professional and board experience. He is the Co-founder and Partner of Titangate Capital Management, an equity firm that invests in deep-tech, enterprise software, semi-conductors, hardware, and artificial intelligence companies. 

He is the Founder and Director of Vitesse Africa Limited, an investment advisory firm focused on African energy, technology and infrastructure sectors.

Previously, Mr. Orji served as the founding Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority.

Africa Prudential Plc’s board has appointed  Oluwaseyi Abe as an Independent Non – Executive Director and Chidi Okpala as a Non – Executive Director respectively, with effect from January 28, 2024, subject to the approval of the Securities and Exchange Commission. 

Oluwaseyi Abe is the current Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Magnartis Finance and Investments Limited. He served as the President and Chairman of the Council of the Chartered Institute of Stockbrokers in 2015.

Chidi Okpala leads Asante Financial Services Group, a credit-led fintech driving business growth for MSMEs across Kenya, Uganda, and Rwanda.

What’s happening this week? 

We should have more earnings drop within the week. 

Nigerian Exchange Group Plc’s board will meet today. The meeting will consider the Report from the Strategy, Finance and Investment (SFIC) Committee deliberations, amongst other matters.

How did the US markets fare last week?

Last week the S&P 500 declined by  1.0%, the Nasdaq Composite fell -1.6% The  Dow rose climbed +0.3%.

Tech stocks were rocked by the Deepseek AI model which reportedly cost $6 million to create. Reality it cost way more, but it was developed at a fraction of US players such as OpenAI.

That caused shares of chipmakers Nvidia and Broadcom to tumble as some investors are wondering if there would be less demand for their products.

You had a bunch of earnings drop during the week, the most prominent being Apple, Microsoft, Meta, Tesla, Chevron and Exxon Mobil.

Popped into a few of the calls. You can find bits and pieces on my timeline.

Wasnt very impressed with the Apple call as it seems iphone sales are propelled by its latest intelligence system. There was robust first time growth in the ipad segment as well as highs across its services unit

Meta more of the same. AI related spending plus tinkering with ads on threads.

Exxon Mobil is firmly focused on its 2030 goal To generate an additional $20 billion in earnings and $30 billion in cash flow by 2030.

The Fed left interest rates unchanged as expected.

What’s happening this week?

Tariffs will take front and centre following the US announcing tariffs on goods from China, Canada and Mexico. Canada has announced tariffs on theirs. Ive touched a bit on this in my watchlist piece.

This week is packed with earnings.

Tyson Foods will drop earnings before US market open today, while Palantir drops after closing hours

On Tuesday, Paypal, Pfizer and Spotify will drop their earnings before market open.

After close, Google, AMD, Snap and Mondelez will drop their earnings.

On Wednesday

Uber, Disney and Novo Nordisk will drop their earnings before market open. Qualcom and AMD will drop theirs after market close.

On Thursday

Eli Lily, Roblox and Hershey will drop earnings before market open. Amazon Fortinet and Cloudflare will drop earnings after market close.

Friday is quiet from the earnings front.