By Our Correspondent

Microsoft has laid off over 300 employees as part of a fresh round of job cuts.

The latest layoffs, disclosed through a notice filed in Washington state, affected several hundred positions across various departments.

However, the tech company did not specify which units were impacted, the publication said.

Citing a notice, the report said a spokesperson for Microsoft described the move as a “recalibration” in response to shifting business priorities and a fast-changing tech landscape.

“We continue to implement organisational changes necessary to best position the company for success in a dynamic marketplace”, the spokesperson said.

The latest layoffs add to the 6,000 jobs the company cut last month.

At the time, Microsoft clarified that the move was not performance-related but intended to reduce layers of management.

The recent job cuts come a month after Microsoft announced the official shutdown of Skype, its video and messaging platform, which had been running for over two decades.

Microsoft had 228,000 employees globally as of June 2024.

In 2023, the tech giant said it would lay off about 10,000 or 5 per cent of its workforce, citing “macroeconomic conditions and changing customer priorities”.

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Greif Nigeria Plc, one of Nigeria’s longstanding industrial companies, is in the final stages of its members’ voluntary winding-up process, according to a formal update issued by the appointed liquidator, Mr. Inam Wilson.

According to a notice to the Nigerian Exchange Limited, the company, which initiated the voluntary liquidation following shareholder approval, has now entered the third and concluding phase of the process.

Wilson confirmed that Greif Nigeria Plc has fully settled its outstanding tax obligations and liabilities and is finalizing its liquidation accounts in compliance with statutory requirements.

“The Company has commenced the third and final stage of its liquidation, has settled its tax and other outstanding liabilities, and is concluding the preparation of its final account”, Wilson stated in the announcement.

Greif Nigeria Plc has engaged All Crown Registrars, its official share registration service provider, to begin dispatching formal notices to all registered shareholders. These notices will include invitations to attend the Company’s Final General Meeting, along with a copy of the liquidation account.

At the final shareholders’ meeting, the liquidation account detailing the financial summary of the company’s wind-down will be presented for formal approval. Once ratified by the shareholders, the final documents will be filed with the Corporate Affairs Commission ,CAC, to complete the legal dissolution of the company.

The voluntary liquidation process, as opposed to a compulsory one, indicates that the company has remained solvent and has chosen to cease operations in an orderly manner, typically for strategic business reasons. The conclusion of this process will mark the end of Greif Nigeria Plc’s corporate existence after decades of operation within Nigeria’s manufacturing and packaging sector.

While no specific reason for the decision to liquidate has been provided in this latest communication, industry analysts have previously speculated that the move may reflect a strategic shift in the parent company’s global portfolio or evolving market dynamics within the Nigerian industrial sector.

Stakeholders, including shareholders, regulators, and the investing public, are expected to receive further updates following the conclusion of the final meeting and the filing of dissolution documents with the CAC.

By Dickson Pat 

Billionaire businessman and Chairman of United Bank for Africa ,UBA, Tony Elumelu, has made a significant investment in the financial institution, acquiring shares worth ₦43.91bn over a two-day period.

The transactions, disclosed in a regulatory filing submitted to the Nigerian Exchange Group ,NGX, by UBA’s Group Company Secretary, Bili Odum, took place between May 29 and May 30, 2025.

According to the filing, Elumelu purchased a total of 1,267,669,350 shares at an average price of ₦34.64 per share, reaffirming his commitment to the bank and its long-term prospects.

The acquisition includes 50 million shares bought at varying prices ranging from ₦34.55 to ₦34.75 and an additional 17,669,350 shares acquired at ₦34.70 per share.

In a related development, Heirs Holdings Limited, the pan-African investment conglomerate also chaired by Elumelu, increased its equity stake in UBA during the same period. A separate filing with the NGX revealed that Heirs Holdings acquired 45,034,044 ordinary shares between May 22 and May 23 at ₦34.30 per share, valued at ₦1.54bn.

The acquisition raised Heirs Holdings’ stake in UBA from 5.30 per cent to 5.43% solidifying its position as the only shareholder with more than a five per cent interest in the bank. Total shareholding now stands at 1,859,037,944 shares.

These transactions appear to have positively influenced investor sentiment, as trading activity on the NGX surged during the week of the announcement. On May 22, a total of 60.7 million UBA shares were exchanged, followed by 45.1 million shares on May 23. The bank’s stock also gained over 3%, closing at ₦34.45 on May 23.

The renewed investor confidence aligns with UBA’s strong financial performance in the first quarter of 2025. The bank reported a 30.65% year-on-year increase in profit before tax, reaching ₦204.2bn, driven largely by robust interest income.

Interest income rose by 36.09% to ₦599.8bn, with loans and advances to customers contributing ₦260.56bn—a 31% increase from Q1 2024. Income from investment securities also grew sharply by 44.96% to ₦291.8bn, while cash balances earned ₦47.42bn.

UBA’s non-interest income performance also remained strong, with ₦47.84bn generated from electronic banking , up 7.86%, ₦29.66bn from transaction fees, and ₦10.39bn from maintenance fees.

On the balance sheet, UBA reported continued growth in key metrics. Customer deposits rose by 4.43% to ₦22.8tn, while total assets grew by 4.58%, to ₦31.7tn as of March 31, 2025.

Elumelu’s increasing stake in UBA both personally and through Heirs Holdings—signals sustained confidence in the bank’s future trajectory and underscores the bank’s growing prominence within Africa’s financial services sector.

By Charles Ebi 

Nigerian Communications Commission ,NCC, has asked banks to deduct Unstructured Supplementary Service Data ,USSD, transactions directly from customers’ airtime.

The regulator directed banks to stop deducting from the bank account balances of customers.

This was contained in a message to customers of United Bank for Africa ,UBA.

According to UBA, the directive will take effect from June 3, 2025.

UBA said, “In line with the directive of the Nigerian Communications Commission ,NCC, please be informed that effective June 3, 2025, charges for USSD banking services will no longer be deducted from your bank account”, the statement reads.

“Going forward, these charges will be deducted directly from your mobile airtime balance in accordance with the NCC’s End-User Billing ,EUB, model.

“Under this new billing structure, each USSD session will attract a charge of N6.98 per 120 seconds, which will be billed by your mobile network operator.

“You will receive a consent prompt at the start of each session, and airtime will only be deducted upon your confirmation and availability of the bank to fulfil this service.

“If you do not wish to continue using USSD banking under this new model, you may choose to discontinue use of the USSD channel”.

The decision is linked to the USSD payment dispute between mobile network operators ,MNOs, and Deposit Money Banks ,DMBs.

Recall that MNOs indebtedness to banks had reached N250bn, which in December 2024, the Central Bank of Nigeria ,CBN, and the NCC directed mobile network operators ,MNOs, and DMBs to resolve the long-standing issue.

Network providers threatened to withdraw services over the debt owed by banks.

By Aliyu Galadima 

Nigeria plans to import dairy cattle from Denmark as part of a strategy to reduce dairy product imports, which cost the country $1.5 billion annually.

The Minister of Livestock Development, Mr Idi Maiha, stated this on Monday as the country aims to double its milk production within five years.

“Our goal is ambitious but achievable — to double Nigeria’s milk production from 700,000 tonnes to 1.4 million tonnes annually in the next five years”, he said.

Mr Maiha said Nigeria’s cattle population, which exceeds 20 million, consists largely of low-yielding pastoralist breeds, revealing that a Nigerian farm had already imported over 200 heifers from Denmark, building its herd through intensive breeding.

So far, he said, eight new pasture species have been registered, the first in 48 years, and a national strategy for animal genetic resources with support from the Food and Agriculture Organisation ,FAO, has been launched.

“With over 20.9 million cattle, 60 million sheep, and 1.4 million goats already, we are not starting from zero, we are building from strength”, Maiha said.

Nigeria’s milk output of 700,000 tonnes a year is way below its annual consumption of 1.6 million tonnes.

This shortfall means the country imports around 60 per cent of its milk.

The country has been seeking steps to reduce import dependency across major sectors including food and manufacturing.

Efforts like this will help reduce import costs and reduce pressure on the local currency which has shown resilience in the last few months at the foreign exchange market.