Silver lining: Nippon’s $680m investment in Reliance

Tom Burgis

Tom Burgis became the FT's West Africa correspondent, based in Lagos, in June 2009, having previously covered southern Africa from Johannesburg. He has reported for the paper from London, Brussels, South America and Africa.

Silver lining: Nippon’s $680m investment in Reliance

March 14, 2011 2:48 pm by Tom Burgis

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A planned $680m investment from Nippon of Japan in the life insurance arm of his business empire comes as a nugget of cheering news amid a tough few weeks for Anil Ambani. It also serves as a reminder that the Indian tycoon appears to have moved his focus away from Reliance Communications, the troubled telecoms business, on to other areas of the conglomerate. Continue reading »

Posted in India | Permalink

Indian markets: sense or volatility?

March 3, 2011 1:50 pm by Tom Burgis

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For those of a nervous disposition, India’s markets look peculiarly dicey just now. From another angle, especially compared to the tumult across the Arabian Sea, the country resembles a bulwark of stability. Investors seem unsure whether to laugh or cry.

The past seven days have seen significant swings in sentiment. As turmoil in Libya sent oil prices surging last week, Mumbai’s benchmark Sensex index incurred its steepest one-day fall in 16 months. Then this Tuesday, as investors digested the previous day’s budget and its commitments to reducing the fiscal deficit, the Sensex recorded its biggest gains in a single session since May 2009. Continue reading »

RCom ignores the debt elephant

February 15, 2011 1:07 pm by Tom Burgis

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With margins under severe pressure in India’s ferociously competitive telecoms sector, executives at Reliance Communications are understandably keen to talk up their plans to wring more profit from their spectrum. But on the question that analysts wanted answered in a quarterly results call on Monday – what India’s second biggest telecoms group plans to do about its rising debt burden – they were much less forthcoming. If executives were trying to lessen growing pressure on Anil Ambani’s embattled commerical empire, they didn’t succeed.

That said, investors hardly seem to be panicking. RCom shares, which had fallen by one-third this year, rose 4.5 per cent on Tuesday.

Tags: Indian politics, telecoms Posted in India | Permalink

Nigeria: credit where credit’s due

January 21, 2011 4:15 pm by Tom Burgis

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Nigeria’s debut $500m international bond – along with attendant worries about the pre-election emptying of its oil savings account – is dominating investors’ thinking about sub-Saharan Africa’s biggest crude producer at present.

Yet there is a strong argument that the keys to unlocking the long-thwarted potential of the continent’s most populous nation lie elsewhere: in the non-oil economy and the local bond market. Continue reading »

Tags: bonds, energy Posted in Nigeria | Permalink

Nigeria: peaceful change needed

January 13, 2011 4:20 pm by Tom Burgis

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Amid cartwheeling acrobats, fraying tempers and tsunamis of hard cash, Nigeria’s ruling party is choosing its presidential candidate for April’s election – and in all likelihood the next ruler of Africa’s oil giant.

It is a spectacle that any investor in the continent’s most populous – and perhaps most bewildering – nation would do well to observe. Continue reading »

Tags: elections, politics Posted in Nigeria | Permalink

Ghana turns on the oil tap

December 15, 2010 7:53 am by Tom Burgis

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Towards the end of the morning on Wednesday, Ghanaians will be able to turn on the television and watch their country become the world’s newest oil producer. The prospect is filling Ghanaian hearts with “euphoria”, according to the state broadcaster, but there are also good reasons to be wary.

The first oil from the Jubilee field, 60km off Ghana’s coast and operated by Tullow Oil of Ireland, does not only represent the first step of one of Africa’s most stable countries into the volatile world of crude production. It is also the first major development in one of the planet’s hottest energy frontiers. Continue reading »

Tags: energy, oil & gas Posted in Africa, Ghana | Permalink

Nigerian power: watt now?

October 14, 2010 10:35 pm by Tom Burgis

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Essar, the Indian conglomerate, plans to invest $2bn or so in Nigerian power plants provided the government honours promises to make the market viable – but this could be just the beginning.

Nigeria’s power sector is so dilapidated the country needs a total of $50bn to sort it out. With promises of reforms (not believed by everyone) and plenty of red wine, it has this week set about wooing investors whose pockets are deep enough to take the job on. Continue reading »

Tags: privatisation Posted in Nigeria | Permalink

Jostling for control of Nigeria’s stock exchange

August 23, 2010 10:32 pm by Tom Burgis

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The struggle to control the Nigerian Stock Exchange has reached the highest echelons of power. The jostling potentates are not among the 900 applicants for the vacant chief executive’s job, but they are certainly taking a keen interest in a race that will shape the future of sub-Saharan Africa’s second-biggest bourse.

The post was recently advertised for the first time in the exchange’s 50-year history and the choice of new boss will go a long way to determining whether Nigeria can break with the market abuses of the past – and join the ranks of major emerging investment destinations. Continue reading »

Tags: corruption Posted in Nigeria | Permalink

Out with the old in the Nigerian market

August 5, 2010 4:15 pm by Tom Burgis

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After a night of the long knives at the Nigerian Stock Exchange, the prospect of a well-run – and potentially lucrative – bourse has edged closer.

Late on Wednesday the Securities and Exchange Commission, Nigeria’s capital markets regulator, declared an inglorious end to Ndi Okereke-Onyiuke’s decade as NSE chief executive, removing her from her post with immediate effect. Continue reading »

Posted in Nigeria, Uncategorized | Permalink

New bill puts Nigeria’s deepwater oil industry on hold

June 17, 2010 5:37 pm by Tom Burgis

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Nigeria knows the misery of oil spills all too well. But might BP’s disaster in the Gulf of Mexico drive investment into the young and growing deepwater sector of Africa’s biggest energy industry?

The prevailing uncertainty makes such a prospect unlikely. Deepwater production already accounts for one-third of Nigeria’s output, in part offsetting the effects of violence and underinvestment in the Niger delta, whose creeks have long been despoiled by crude. But new projects have stalled amid much gnashing of teeth over proposed changes to oil legislation. Continue reading »

Tags: energy, oil & gas, Shell Posted in Nigeria | Permalink

Nigerians should not rejoice just yet

May 27, 2010 7:33 pm by Tom Burgis

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For the first time in at least three years, a chance to fix Nigeria’s disastrous electricity shortage is in prospect.

Whether the leaders of Africa’s most populous nation grasp the opportunity will depend primarily on whether economic sanity prevails over the patronage politics that tends to hold sway over the world’s 10th biggest oil exporter. Continue reading »

Posted in Africa, Nigeria | Permalink

China builds friendships downstream in its Nigerian oil feeding frenzy

May 17, 2010 3:25 pm by Tom Burgis

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With its $23bn offer to build three oil refineries and a petrochemical plant in Nigeria, China has added fresh impetus to its tireless courtship of Africa’s most prodigious energy producer.

At first glance, one might conclude that Beijing, shopping for crude to fire the economic engine at home, has planted its flag at the wrong end of the oil supply chain.

That would be a mistake. Continue reading »

Tags: oil & gas Posted in Africa, Asia, China, Nigeria | Permalink

Africa: a coup in Niger raises questions about China’s tactics

May 3, 2010 2:26 pm by Tom Burgis

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Like Britain and France a century ago, China is finding that its push into Africa is running into a few local difficulties. Even when Beijing arrives offering gifts in return for the mineral resources it covets, it discovers that money isn’t everything. Its emissaries must still manage to identify the right movers and shakers to cosy up to.

Take Niger, for example. The impoverished country’s uranium deposits are world-class. But keeping your grip on the mines is anything but easy. Continue reading »

Posted in Africa, Asia, China | Permalink

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Tom Burgis