Author: Julius Alagbe

Julius Alagbe is a senior financial journalist and Editor at MarketForces Africa with nearly two decades of experience in finance, accounting, and economics reporting.He is one of Nigeria's most prolific financial market reporters, covering capital markets, monetary policy, corporate earnings, banking, telecoms, and macroeconomic developments across Africa.Julius has built a strong footprint reporting on Nigeria's leading corporates and financial services sector, including coverage of the Nigerian Exchange Group, Central Bank of Nigeria monetary operations, MTN Nigeria, GTCO, and major investment banking transactions.He regularly monitors the CBN’s open market operations, interbank FX markets, and equity market movements, providing readers with real-time intelligence on Nigeria’s financial landscape.His reporting draws on direct access to institutional research from firms including Moody’s Ratings, CardinalStone Securities, Fitch, and other leading African investment houses.Julius brings analytical depth and editorial rigour to every story, making complex financial data accessible to professionals, investors, and policymakers across Africa.Julius Alagbe is based in Lagos, Nigeria.

Impressive Revenue Recovery Fails to Return INTBREW to Profitability Pre-existing industry headwinds remain key threat to International Breweries Plc. (INTBREW) performance outlook as analysts entered bearish moods over disappointing earnings. Amidst pressure in the operating environment, INTBREW reported strong recovery in alcohol demand in particular. Largely, this supported and drive its third quarter (Q3) revenue level, a rebound from pre-pandemic sales level. But, it could only reduce the brewer’s loss position by cents, as competition, excise duty and devaluation of Naira remain downside to earnings performance. Meanwhile, it is important to note that INTBREW peers are also grappling with multiple…

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Dangote Cement: Earnings Expands Two-fold on Sharp Revenue Growth Dangote Cement Plc.’s (ticker: DANGCEM) unaudited financials for the third quarter of 2020 comes with sharp increase in revenues that resulted to two-fold earnings growth amidst moderation in operating cost. In the 9-month of financial year 2020, the cement company delivered 37.6% uptick in pretax profit which printed at ₦272.0 billion in from ₦197.7 billion in 9M-2019. On quarter on quarter basis, the group Q3-2020 pretax profit expanded 45.9% above second quarter (Q2) figure to ₦82.5 billion. Consequently, earnings per share (EPS) jerked up more than two-fold on a sharp pace…

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