Sovereign Wealth Fund records N5.17b profit
Uche Orji CEO Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority
Declares N15.77b turnover
The Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority (NSIA), operators of the country’s $1.5 billion Sovereign Wealth Fund (SWF) has declared a N15.77 billion turnover for its 2014 operating year.
The result is a huge improvement on the 2013 business year result of N525 million turnover, just as the Fund for the first time also netted a profit of over N5.17 billion as operation cost and taxes alone gulped the sum of N1.9 billion.
The Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of the fund, Mr. Uche Orji revealed these figures in Abuja while shedding light on the status of the fund, which fully came into operation in 2013.
He revealed that so far, the Fund has partnered with DFID, IFC, GE, Islamic Development Bank, Proparco and other private equity funds for co-investment opportunities and has equally within the period been admitted as a full member of the International Forum of Sovereign Wealth Funds (IFSWF) where it is currently ranked in global joint-second category for transparency in 2014/15 by the U.S.-based Sovereign Wealth Fund.
Orji said: “In 2014, NSIA was upgraded from a score of four (4) to nine (9) in the Linaburg-Maduell Transparency Index putting NSIA in the joint second category overall.
The Linaburg-Maduell Transparency Index is a method adopted by Sovereign Wealth Funds Institute for rating transparency in respect of sovereign wealth funds.” Currently, there are 84 SWFs managing assets worth over $7 trillion globally.
African SWFs account for around 2.3% of all SWF assets globally (Algeria and Libya account for more than 80% of African SWFs). In the last four years, Nigeria, Ghana and Angola have established SWFs, managing $1 billion, $480 million and $5 billion respectively.
Speaking on one of its investment platforms in Nigeria – The Second Niger Bridge, the Managing Director of the Fund declared that the Fund was desirous of rewriting the infrastructure story of Nigeria through its Nigeria Infrastructure Fund window, adding that through its wholly-owned subsidiary, NSIA Motorways Investment Company (NMIC), NSIA is collaborating with the Federal Ministry of Works and Julius Berger Investments (JBI) as joint sponsors on the financing, development and construction of the Second Niger Bridge.
He then gave a status report of the project so far and the quantum of investment by the Fund: “The project is structured as a Public Private Partnership (PPP) and will be constructed and operated on a Design, Build, Finance, Operate and Transfer (DBFOT) basis. “It is expected that the Bridge would be constructed and delivered in 48 months.
When completed, the Bridge and adjacent roads will have six (6) lanes with three (3) in each direction. “The Project was initially estimated to cost N108billion excluding duties and VAT, (if duties and VAT are included, the project cost is N117.9billion).
This was equivalent to US$700million at the then prevailing exchange rate of N154/$. The final project cost would naturally be affected by exchange rate fluctuations and other variables. “The Federal Government made a N30billion commitment to the Project.
The consortium would raise the remaining funds for the project from Nigerian and international lenders and equity providers. It has released N18.3billion so far of which N10.4billion has been disbursed on early construction works.
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11 Comments
Where is the 700 million dollars expended by Oshiomole .
Sometimes it is a bit difficult to decipher whether pronouncements from some Politicians are figments of their imagination, factual, ignorance or just mischief.
The downside is that such acts have far reaching consequences. Apart from smearing the characters involved, they make business generally difficult in Nigeria as very few Investors attempt due diligence once mismanagement/fraud/corruption is associated with any project, agency etc. Given that majority are far advanced in age, it is a bit difficult to accept that they are aware of the impact of their words and just do not care.
Let us see how far these tactics will take us.
Can you imagine the promiscuous broadcast syndrome? They figure things out in a delusionary method and rush to the press. Nothing works to term in their scheme of deliveries. They see a sign of progress, they get carried away in a foolish euphoria seeking sound bytes, absconding from consistently hunkering down to sustain the progress. We are always forgetting that the taste of the pudding is in the eating as the saying warned.
if the fund is in NGN then US$1.5bn or N220bn (start year fx) in tbills at 10% for one year ..what do you get? N22bn….
if the fund is in US$ then I would expect you to book the FX gains this year also.. which should be over 20/30% 150 to 200… so N50bn.
so how far N15bn?
also, i thought a part of the fund was for rainy days… well ..its raining.. so give the states back their money.
such a dodgy bunch….
some interesting logic should government be buying up its TBills?
it shouldnt really it is meant to diversify…im just baffled by the reporting of the returns…. should be a huge fx gain.
where this is good. however the intial start up amount is really too low and it needs to be increased. my problem is this, is the 2 niger bridge a worthy investment for a SWF to be making. The only means of revenue from the bridge is from tolls.
SWF is to invest in infrastructures.
…if the fund operates in $, and in any case, the investment wasn’t in Naira, will someone just stop pulling wools on our eyes and give us the investment returns in $ as well. The days of thinking Nigerians are stupid are long gone with the removal of that corrupt regime. Since I am not in the business of doing your work for you, let a member of the team, or whoever is responsible for the report give us the returns in Dollars please, and stop being cheeky!
It’s a pity some Nigerians perpetually have salt in their mouth when they speak.
Someone is asking for the investment returns to be give. In naira when he has calculator on his phone. Should government do everything for you?
The sovereign wealth has declared profit of over N5bn which means the initial investment is still in place or rather intact, thus how can say there was corruption there?
Hw do youths of today reason?
Are we blinded to reality and truth?
And in investments as much as you have gain u must have made some loss too so profit declared today is not an indicator that no expenses or losses were not made.
Especially in the years of set-up, and imagine if GEJ had appointed some mallam to manage this office you think this is the results we wld be getting today? SwF wld have been seen as ministerial office set up for employment purpose.
The 2nd bridge is a worthy project to behold thus the questions or eyebrows we the youth should be asking is why is the SWF business not applied to development of our railway lines instead of borrowing directly from China, 2nd Niger Bridge to me is a regional project while our railways Are national
Since the investment was made in dollars and the return was earned in dollars, the fund should state it in dollars. Just be transparent and sincere. How difficult is that?
We will review and take appropriate action.