On December 16, Moroccan securities regulator CDVM green-lit issuance of a $91 million bond by Moroccan steelmaker Maghreb Steel. The transaction includes the issuance of 8,950 bonds at 100,000 dirhams each. It is to be subdivided into two installments respectively capped at 537 million dirhams and 358 dirhams. Subscription extends from December 21 to December 23. The bond issuance is...

Access Power, the Emirati energy solutions provider has launched in cooperation with the FMO (Deutsch Bank of Development) a new contest for the innovations related to solar energy breakthroughs named the Access Power-FMO Solar Shark Competition. The contest is open to innovators and developers from Africa, Asia and Latin America who need help in order to make their project more economically...

In office since the beginning of the month, Jes Staley, Barclays Bank new Director General initiated the review of the whole group’s activity. An exercise which is to end in March 2016 but which, according to Financial Times, could lead to a back-scaling of the group’s operations in Africa.  The British media cited sources which are close to the case, and mentioned a number of...

In Côte d’Ivoire, Minister of Communication, Affoussiata Bamba-Lamine is not pleased with the way press guarantee fund is used. She said the utilization rate for the fund was too low - 7% - considering that it amounted to 2.035 billion FCFA ($3.3 million). The press guarantee fund was established to back bank loans to press firms. This fund is poorly exploited by Medias currently facing a...

Morocco’s National Telecommunication Regulatory Authority (ARNT) has set December 31 as deadline for Maroc Telecom to comply with its request to provide offer for unbundling of local fiber optic loop and sub-loop to Meditel and Inwi. Truly, the incumbent fixed-line operator was instructed by telecom regulator to provide its unbundling offer since October 15, 2015. ANRT’s new call follows...

Only eight African countries have been listed among the countries with low political risks. This was revealed by global business risks consultancy Control Risks in its riskmap published December 14. These are: Morocco, Senegal, Cape-Verde, Seychelles, Namibia, Mauritius and Ghana. However, most countries in Africa exhibit a medium level of political risk. Such are: South Africa, Nigeria,...

South Africa is the largest subscriber to pay TV in Africa. The country will have 7,242,000 subscribers for the service by 2018. In end-2014, the country registered 5.43 subscriptions with growth rate of 30% for 2018. These data was released in a report by Dataxis, multinational which provides market analysis in relation to media, telecom, and TV industries. In South Africa, pay TV will know a...

On December 15, 2015, Reporters without Borders (Rsf) published its report on imprisoned, hostages, and missing journalists worldwide. It emerged from it that 54 journalists were taken hostages, 153 imprisoned and 8 missing. Quite a mitigated report compared to that of previous year. Indeed, the number of journalists taken across the world grew 35% this year against 2014 where they were 40....

The Nigerian Federal High Court on Tuesday asked nine sailors to decide between jail and the payment of a substantial fine of $100,000 dollars, following convictions of oil smuggling. The suspects five from Philippines and four from Bangladesh, were caught in March 2015 in Lagos Lagoon aboard the MT Asteris. The MT Asteris according to prosecutors was used to illegally store 3,423,097...

The Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN), has authorized moves by the Federal Government to divide the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC). PENGASSAN President, Francis Johnson, declared this on Tuesday at the 4th Triennial Delegates' Conference, in Abuja. According to ThisDay, information contained in the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB), is to be...