Category: Uncategorized

Valentine’s Day is a great day for appreciating your loved ones. It almost always feels like the day should not end and this is the essence of love. However way you decide to spend this special day, we have five wands that will make it extra magical:

FIND THEIR NEEDS AND FILL IT

In one of those moments where you’re supposed to be listening, has your partner mentioned needing a certain thing countless times? Valentine’s Day is a great way to show you’ve been listening and that they matter. Stronger relationships are formed with the most spontaneous gestures.

SPEAK-A-BOO

For a day solely dedicated to loved ones, this is one you want to do right. Speak in your partner’s love language. Whether through words of affirmation, quality time, thoughtful gifts, acts of service or physical touch, show your partner that their presence and absence is important. Remind them that no one else understands their language as much as you do.

WHO SHOULD LOVE THEMSELVES AGAIN?

You! Just because you are equally special with or without a partner, create your own magic. This day is a beautiful day to write up and plan, or strike off items on your bucket list. Set out to make yourself happy, going for exciting treats at the spa or the movies. Rest assured, there’s also a space for you on Valentine’s Day.

SHARING REALLY IS CARING

Love, after every other thing; is also sharing. It doesn’t have to be all materialistic, your presence in the lives of certain people (even if they don’t know you), goes further than you can imagine. Take a trip to an NGO and spend the day simply playing and having fun with them. Sort out different things you own and are not in use. Gift them to a neighbor in need, you’d be shocked at what little could put a smile on someone’s face.

MEMORIES ARE MEANT TO BE (RE) CREATED

Memories are beautiful and there’s no limit to them. Make more memories to complement previous ones, no matter how your past memories were. The future is always ready for unforgettable memories. For Valentine’s Day, the Gift Of A Lifetime is a lasting present that your future memories will love to uphold.

There is an old saying that investors bet the jockey over the horse. Horses come and go, but a really good jockey is a rare thing and lasts a lifetime.

The discourse about lack of funding being the most critical challenge facing small businesses seem to have been overestimated to a degree that it’s been formed in the neural pathways of many entrepreneurs.They blame everything, even internal problems on lack of funding. On the flip side, newspaper headlines continue to feature many emerging businesses whom recently have secured funding from local and foreign investors. When I analysed these businesses side by side with the total stock of funds in Nigeria looking to invest in emerging businesses, (which my data happens to put at $6 billion), I believe the major issue here in Nigeria is that we have very few fundable businesses.

You need to understand the difference between a viable business and a fundable business. Certainly a non-viable business should not be fundable, but many viable businesses are also not fundable. Fundamentally, a viable business means that your business is on its way to self-sustaining revenues, while a fundable business means your business has the potential to fundamentally change the lives of a large number of people and can generate optimal returns for investors.

Financing a viable business that is not fundable will just be mere experimenting. Nobody wants to experiment; they want to either light up a fire that they are sure of or pour gasoline on a fire that is already burning – a $1million business idea is different from a $1million business, investors are interested in the latter.

Hence, before you source for funding or come up with excuses why your funding request was rejected, be brave and look at your business with honesty: does it look and feel like a fundable company?

So here we go, how do you make your business fundable?

For your business to be fundable, your business plan need to clear, scalable, possess huge market potential and has to be uniquely qualified to deliver. You need to match your plan with credible likelihood to execute. According to Alan Brody, the best (fundable) idea and entrepreneurs are “in the moment” of the idea – the idea looks right, the entrepreneur looks right and the timing looks right.

The steps outlined here should be used as a baseline for any entrepreneur working to develop their idea or concept into a fundable business proposition and moving it to the next level with potential investors.

Validate your idea
You shouldn’t try to create a business that has not yet been defined. The biggest mistake most entrepreneurs make is starting to work on a business idea before confirming that there is market demand. If your startup aims to sell a product the world has never seen, make sure the world, in fact, needs your product. Perhaps it doesn’t exist yet because no one needs it. If it is needed, then make sure the world is willing to pay for it. Don’t work on the business until you’ve validated the idea, make sure there’s a market, make sure it’s what the customer wants. Sometimes the entrepreneur’s vision doesn’t align properly with what customers want.

Create a solid business plan, pitch-deck and financial model that you understand
Half the business idea pitches I hear don’t have any plan at all, even though some have great potential. Creating a business plan requires you to do research and really think about your product or service, identify your prospective customers, and to analyze your competition in that specific channel or marketplace. It will help get you thinking about marketing and overhead costs. As you go through this process, your idea may begin to change, to grow, and to mature into a well thought out and developed concept. This is what investors will be interested in.

Build the right team
Investors bet on the team, just as they bet on a business plan. Your business model may be very attractive, but if you are new to this, you may not be fundable. If you can find a partner who has deep domain knowledge and a track record of building businesses, I can assure you that your luck will improve.

Have a thorough structure
Governance of a company, even a young one, can tell an investor a lot about the capabilities of the promoters. Ensure that you can accurately portray your current company structure, and that you have the clerical backing for it. All registration documents and resolutions need to be obtainable and compliance with all industry bodies and laws need to be in place.

Have a clear go-to-market strategy and competitive advantage
You need to show how your product or service will be embodied in a solution that satisfies people’s need, what channels will be used for sales and what business model maximizes return. You also need to have a long-term sustainable competitive advantage in the market, an idea or concept that changes the basis of competition within the targeted market of interest.

Your business must be scalable
Your business plan may eliminate world hunger, but hungry people don’t have much money. Some business may make sense for now, but scaling and profitability is limited. How much realistic growth potential does your business have? Is there a way to double or triple your revenues within a year or two? What will it take to make it happen? If you can demonstrate the scalability of your company, you’ll find more investors willing to talk to you.

Have an early track record of sales
If you have a functional product, have you begun to sell it? If you can show investors you have a product that is already seeing some sales, they will be more likely to take your idea seriously. If you have not yet logged any sales, you should at least get feedback from neutral consumers in your target market and present it to investors. In short, you will need to prove that consumers are willing to pay for your product.

Be aware, respond to feedback and refine your business model
Recently, an entrepreneur shared his business plan with me. First-mover advantage was basically his selling point, but my quick research on the business led me to 5 big players already in the industry. It was later I discovered he had this business plan written in 2014 and has done nothing to it since then. It is necessary to constantly think with the lines of your business, you have always got to be thinking about how you can tweak things to make the business even better. You have to be acutely aware of what the market is telling you and what you are able to learn about either your competitive landscape or the market you’re trying to serve or the problems you’re trying to solve, it’s a continuous process.

Always try to look at your business, and business plan, through the eyes of an investor, do not get caught up with your business idea that you lose sight of how others see it. Investors are constantly looking to invest; your job is to be properly prepared when opportunity strikes.

Even if you are not searching for funding, it will be worth your while to navigate your business into a category that is both viable and fundable. The odds of finding funding generally correlate highly to your odds of business success, and your personal risk is even more critical than outside investor risk. Minimise both.

See why anyone with a retirement plan should have an RSA Will:

Dele sat in the sitting room where his father had taught him almost everything he knew about life. Only that this time, his father was not seated in his favourite chair opposite the TV, his pile of newspapers had gathered dust from lack of touch and his glasses case lay there dusty and unbothered. His father was gone, three months now and he still couldn’t believe it. But the truth settled in as his eyes darted around the room. He saw his siblings- all home for the burial, his mother-completely draped in black yet managing to look stunning. There were also uncles, three of them and the one aunt nobody really liked. Everyone sat there quietly, listening to ‘baba agba’- the family head.

Baba agba managed to avoid everyone’s gaze, intent on his task of dividing Chief Akinlabi’s property among the members of the family since the deceased had not left a Will.  After about fifteen minutes of decrying the lack of cooperation demonstrated by Dele’s mother in providing documents to her late husband’s properties, he proceeded to reel out names and their bequest. The concerned people struggled not to smile. You cannot display your happiness at getting a three-storey building in Ketu when your younger brother just died.  Dele was beginning to imagine he had been forgotten when baba agba called his name, allocating the rundown plastic factory at Sagamu to him. No one could control the laughter that filled the room. Dele’s siblings could also not hide their anger at the shoddy distribution of assets. However, the look on their mother’s face seemed assured, she had a plan.

Two hours later, the meeting had dispersed leaving just Dele and his siblings, patiently awaiting their mother. She soon emerged from the room holding a folder. Admonishing them to disregard the selfish actions of baba-agba and his people, she encouraged them to maximize the little they had gotten. Lastly, she informed them of their father’s Pension funds which had run into about 16 million Naira. Dele being the first child was given the task of accessing the funds on everyone’s behalf. The plan was that Dele would access the money and mother and children would divide it among themselves.

Many months later, animosity was brewing. Dele’s siblings somehow could not believe that accessing the funds had taken so long. Even his mother was beginning to speculate that Dele had diverted the funds for his personal use. What they all didn’t know was accessing the Pension was not a walk in the park. Their father had not left an RSA Will. Hence, the PFA did not have the legal rights to transfer the funds to him.

Claiming his ‘inheritance’ had been an ordeal, beginning with visits to the court in the quest to obtain letter of administration and other documents. With each document he got, he was required to get another- costing him not only time and stress, but also money.

Finally, all obstacles were cleared and his reputation with his family repaired. Thinking of the turmoil he had endured in his bid to access the funds, Dele knew he could not make the same mistake his father made. He needed to get a Will.

It just makes sense, if you take years to build your Pension, you should do everything it takes to protect it with an RSA Will.

In keeping with ARM Trustee’s commitment of helping clients build legacies via transfer of wealth from one generation to the next, ARM Trustees Limited has launched Education Trust and Education Trust Plus products.

Both products, launched recently in Lagos aim at assisting parents and/or guardians secure uninterrupted education for their child(ren) or ward(s).Whilst the  Education Trust is used to simply set aside money specifically for a loved one’s education, The Education Trust Plus combines the Education Trust with a Life Insurance Policy. It allows you to take out a life insurance policy naming the Trustee as the beneficiary of the policy. Thus, upon demise or incapacity, the Trustee can access the benefits of the life insurance and apply same for the education of loved ones. Payment of an annual premium for the life insurance policy will be made from the Trust.

Read More

Mixta Africa is proud to be Lead Sponsor of Wakaa! The Musical in London’s west end.

Wakaa! is an original African export that tells the African story, the African way. It illustrates the current reality of the typical African youth who is looking for a way out of Africa and failing to see the opportunities that exist in here. When BAP Productions approached us about their intention to take Wakaa to the global stage, it was easy for us to connect with; firstly, because we want to support the arts, an industry with immense potentials. Our support also demonstrates what Mixta Africa is about: harnessing opportunities, which we do by building communities across Africa.

Read More

The firm’s management urges government to encourage mortgage facilities whereby prospective homeowners would be able to access it and pay for 25 years, citing Tunisia and other African countries where interest rate is said to be lower than Nigeria.

DETERMINED to achieve its goal of bridging housing deficits in Nigeria, a foremost property development company, Asset & Resource Management Company (ARM) Ltd, has mapped out strategic moves to ensure towards providing affordable homes for Nigerians.

For that reason, it had acquired a foreign outfit, Mixta Africa, a Barcelona-based outfit, which specializes in housing delivery.

Read more

As part of our initiatives aimed at increasing literacy and awareness amongst the younger generation through education and dialogue, and empowering them to make meaningful impact in their communities, ARM has partnered with the Lagos State Government on its “Access to Knowledge” (Project 350) initiative.

We renovated the libraries of two secondary schools and also provided books, internet ready desktops with uninterrupted power supply. The schools are:

• Ireti Senior Grammar School, Ikoyi, Lagos
• Falomo Senior High School, Ikoyi, Lagos

We are pleased to announce that delegates from the Lagos State Government visited the schools today to officially open the libraries. Representing the Lagos State Governor was the special adviser to the governor on Education, Mr. Fela Bank-Olemoh.

See pictures from the Launch here.

Global financial markets started the year in red as renewed uncertainty over growth induced heightened volatility. Whilst for China the depth of economic slowdown and its monetary authority’s attempt to defy the “impossible trilemma”1 were at the heart of worries, concerns over the sustainability of US’ fledgling recovery—despite its strong labour market growth—and danger of potential reversion to deflation in Europe compounded decision making for investors. On the policy front, apex banks across developed markets largely maintained their expansionary course, with Bank of Japan (BoJ) and European Central Banks (ECB) respectively guiding to extension of negative interest rates and quantitative easing programmes in coming periods. Whilst the US had looked the more likely to buck the DM easing trend on the back of its December 2015 rate adjustment—the first in nearly ten years, concerns over Brexit and slowing global growth have made it harder for FOMC to justify a rate hike in 2016, after December 2015’s 25bps raise.

Across most emerging markets, commodity price depression and flagging Chinese growth continued to drive subdued macroeconomic conditions, save for India where private consumption benefited from energy savings and boosted economic growth. In Nigeria, renewed insurrection in Niger Delta creeks and extended FX crises conspired to aggravate impact of falling crude prices—leaving the largest economy in Africa in a fight against looming recession. Worse still, an acceleration of inflation to six year highs of 16.5% and rising unemployment rate have kept disposable income suppressed just as the late passage of the budget quenched hopes of stimulatory government spending in the current year. Nonetheless, clear positives emerged on the policy front with partial deregulation of PMS prices in May and switch to flexible FX market architecture a month later with the former appearing to be particularly well-received by markets. In our last report, we framed the key assessment parameter for the Buhari government as the question of whether the economic ravages are so deep cutting as to render untimely economic intervention ineffectual in the near term. So far, lingering fundamental weakness with faint signs of counter-cyclical government spending have served to re-enforce that the answer is in the affirmative.

Read detailed report here

My wife and I had plans of dedicating the first year of our marriage to each other. No children yet, we said, just us. But nature had other plans. Barely two months into the marriage, she got pregnant. Though unprepared, we were elated, especially when we later discovered we would be having twins. Our boys came, bouncing with life and always eager to eat. Soon, I realised just how big a commitment fatherhood is.  The list never ends – baby food and diapers, walkers and new clothes that speedy growth soon render useless – I  provided them all with joy.

Before long, it was time for school.  Knowing the value of foundations, we embarked on a quest to find our kids the best school around. It was then the real shocker came. The fees were outrageous. After demanding tuition of about N60, 000, we were still expected to pay for uniforms, books, music lessons and swimming. Music lessons and swimming? For 1 year olds that could hardly talk! I was stunned. All my attempts at bargaining with the head teacher failed, it was either I coughed out N90, 000 per child or took my children to another school. Other schools were only mildly cheaper and a little farther from home – our hands were tied.

Returning home, we strategized. School fees have to be paid three times a year, about 3 months apart. We also had to factor in the fact that school fees will most likely increase as our children progress. Combining our financial muscles, we could afford to pay the fees but what happens in years to come when the demand increases? Of course, we hoped to have one or two more children in later years who will also attend good schools. Would we be able to cope? What if something happened and one of us had to stop working? We needed a sustainable plan.

Opting to seek counsel from older couples who must have crossed this bridge at some point, we spoke with Efe, my wife’s cousin. He was fortunate to have had his two kids at two years interval. He revealed that he had an education savings plan with an insurance company, one that enabled him save a substantial sum monthly towards his children’s education. He said the plan worked better than saving in a traditional savings account because the insurance company hold you accountable, monitoring your deposits and paying interests periodically. After a stipulated number of years, you are paid a lump sum. He explained that he plans it such that the lump sum comes in at the point where his kids are about to make major academic advancements like primary school to secondary school. The benefits are endless, he said, should anything happen to the parent, it serves as a cover for the continued education of the children left behind..

His words soothed us like rain after three days of hot Lagos sun, we were relieved and reassured. Since we had proof that his plan worked, we decided to use the same plan so we spoke with his contact at ARM Life.

Three years have gone by, my boys welcome me home every day with nursery rhymes and ‘A for Apple’ and it’s the highpoint of my day. Updates from my insurance company come in periodically, intimating me on the growth of the fund and  assuring me that no matter how expensive education gets or whatever happens to me, I will still be able to provide the best for my boys and the little girl due to arrive in a few months.

In keeping with their commitment to exceeding clients’ expectations, ARM securities recently introduced ARM Stocktrade, a self-service online trading portal that enables clients execute trades, real-time, on the Nigerian Stock Exchange. The portal is also enabled to provide access to stock broking accounts and gainful insight from quality research resources enabling clients to make informed stock trade decisions.

Clients who log into the portal will enjoy the ease and convenience of placing trade orders online, backed by relevant reliable information and timely updates. Speaking on the development, Mrs Kemi Oluwashina, a Director of ARM Securities explained that the portal was born out of the company’s desire to continually add value to its clients; that’s why the live market feed and research pages on ARM Stocktrade portal were specially tailored to meet the growing need for relevant information on the go.

Also reacting to the portal, Mr. Taiwo Adeleye, the Head of Marketing and Corporate Communications at Asset &Resource Management Company Limited (ARM) further stated that one of the things ARM Stocktrade has going for it is its adaptability to any mobile device. Clients will be able to place orders online from their phones and receive contract notes on the same day. He mentioned that this is one of the ways ARM keeps its promise of empowering its clients to realise their ambitions. Existing clients of ARM Securities Limited can log into the system immediately while new clients need only complete the simple online account opening form and upload required documents at www.armstocktrade.com to start trading.

ARM Securities Limited (ARM Securities) is an independent subsidiary of the Traditional Asset Management arm of ARM – a leading, reputable asset management firm with a very successful track record of protecting and growing investments for private investors and institutions for over two decades. ARM Securities started operations in 2008 as a full service brokerage house offering brokerage services to local as well as foreign private and institutional investors. The company is a dealing member of the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) and is regulated by Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).