April 5, 2016/Orange

Orange (www.Orange.com) announces the acquisition of a 75 million-euro equity interest in Africa Internet Group, joining AXA, Goldman Sachs and longstanding investors MTN Group, Millicom and Rocket Internet. Through this investment, which will be accompanied by a series of strategic partnerships between the subsidiaries of the two groups, Orange will help Jumia and other websites run by Africa Internet Group to accelerate their growth and seize development opportunities in Africa.

Since Jumia’s creation in Nigeria in 2012, Africa Internet Group has seen significant and continuous growth with ten online consumer businesses operating today in 23 African countries, enabling more than 50,000 local and international companies to do business with African consumers.

Jumia, the original platform, allows businesses to market their products and services online to Africa’s emerging middle class. Other services offered by Africa Internet Group include an e-commerce marketplace (Kaymu), websites offering food delivery (Hellofood) and hotel booking (Jovago), as well as online classified ads for general merchandise (Vendito), real estate (Lamudi), jobs (Everjobs) and vehicles (Carmudi).

This investment underscores Orange’s commitment to Africa, a high-growth territory where nearly one in ten inhabitants is an Orange customer, and confirms the Group’s determination to provide the best digital services to its customers.

Stéphane Richard, Chairman and CEO of Orange, stated: “We are particularly pleased to announce our entry into the capital of Africa Internet Group. With this strategic investment, Orange now has the capacity to play a leading role in the fast-growing e-commerce market in Africa. This acquisition is combined with the signature of several important partnership agreements that will create value for all parties. In particular, across the twelve countries where we have a common presence, this investment will enable us to significantly develop our ability to market products and services developed by Orange Middle East & Africa over the Internet. This operation, initiated by our corporate investment fund Orange Digital Ventures, is fully aligned with our strategic plan, Essentiels2020, particularly with regards to our ambition to reinvent customer service, develop the digital channels and services offered to customers as well as our ambition to develop our activities in Africa and the Middle East.”

Sacha Poignonnec and Jeremy Hodara, founders and co-CEOs of Jumia and Africa Internet Group, commented: “We are thrilled by Orange’s equity investment and are eager to translate our strategic partnership into unique offers for our customers. Jumia and our other online consumer services give millions of African consumers an opportunity to access and transact with local companies in a new and very convenient way. With Orange’s support and expertise, combined with that of our existing long-standing shareholders, we will be able to further improve our service offerings and the customer experience while continuing to invest in our infrastructure”.

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Thu March 17, 2016/Reuters

By Laila Kearney

Wall St moved higher on Thursday, pushing the Dow Jones industrial average into positive territory for the year, as commodity prices rose on the back of a weaker U.S. dollar to boost shares in the energy and materials sectors.

The Dow’s move into positive territory came a day after the U.S. Federal Reserve took a dovish stance that weighed on the dollar.

“It was a weak dollar rally,” said John Augustine, chief investment officer at Huntington National Bank. “It took up groups associated with a weaker dollar.”

The top performing sectors in the S&P 500 were materials, industrials and energy.

The rally was a “continued reaction from the Fed’s move,” said David Lefkowitz, senior equities analyst at UBS Americas Wealth Management in New York.

The Fed on Wednesday pointed to moderate U.S. economic growth and strong job gains but cautioned about risks from an uncertain global economy.

The central bank pointed to the possibility of two more rate hikes before the end of the year, having laid out four hikes in 2016 when it raised rates in December.

The Dow and S&P were at their highest since Dec. 31 and the Nasdaq hit its highest since Jan. 7.

For the blue-chip Dow, which includes stocks like GE and Goldman Sachs, the past five weeks’ rally has now clawed back the deep losses that kicked off the year.

Investors’ fears that the U.S. economy could be headed for another recession have faded into the background at least temporarily.

“It’s a pretty equity-friendly backdrop,” Lefkowitz said.

The Dow Jones industrial average .DJI closed up 155.73 points, or 0.9 percent, at 17,481.49. The S&P 500 .SPX gained 13.37 points, or 0.66 percent, to 2,040.59 and the Nasdaq Composite .IXIC added 11.02 points, or 0.23 percent, to 4,774.99.

U.S. crude CLc1 settled up 4.5 percent at $40.20 a barrel on optimism that major producers will strike an output freeze deal next month amid rising crude exports and gasoline demand in the United States..

Healthcare .SPXHC was the only decliner among the 10 major S&P 500 sectors. It fell 1.05 percent, dragged down by Eli Lilly’s (LLY.N) 4.7-percent fall.

Industrials .SPLRCI gained 2 percent, propped up by General Electric’s (GE.N) 2.6-percent rise to $30.96. The stock gave the biggest boost to the S&P 500.

FedEx (FDX.N) rose 11.8 percent at $161.34 after the package delivery company forecast better-than-expected full-year earnings.

Endo International (ENDP.O) dropped 12.5 percent at $29.68, after the drugmaker forecast first-quarter results below estimates.

About 8.2 billion shares changed hands on U.S. exchanges, above the 8.02 billion average over the last 20 sessions.

Advancing issues outnumbered declining ones on the NYSE by 2,473 to 595, for a 4.16-to-1 ratio on the upside; on the Nasdaq, 1,927 issues rose and 872 fell for a 2.21-to-1 ratio favoring advancers.

The S&P 500 posted 61 new 52-week highs and 6 new lows; the Nasdaq recorded 73 new highs and 74 new lows.

(Additional reporting by Abhiram Nandakumar; Editing by Nick Zieminski)

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By InvestAdvocate

Lagos (INVESTADVOCATE)-Nigerian e-commerce firm, Africa Internet Group (AIG), said on Thursday it has raised further funding worth a total of 225 million euros ($245 million) from investors including Goldman Sachs, South African telecoms group MTN and Germany’s Rocket Internet, according to a Reuters report.

The report says that AIG which was founded in Nigeria in 2012 owns several technology companies that operate in 26 countries across the continent including online retailer Jumia, delivery app HelloFood, hotel booking platform Jovago and online real estate marketplace Lamudi.

It noted investors have been attracted by a growing demand for online products in more developed African markets in recent years and the prospect of larger disposable incomes among a growing middle class with burgeoning smartphone use making it easier to spend.

According to the Reuters report, the additional investment by MTN, which bought a 33 percent stake in AIG in 2014, comes despite the current dispute with Nigeria over a demand it pay $3.9 billion in fines for failing to cut off unregistered SIM card users on its local mobile network.

The report disclosed that in all the latest investments, which are additional to the 75 million euros that French insurer AXA said last month it was paying for an eight (8) percent stake, will take AIG’s capital up to 1 billion euros, Reuters quoted the company officials.

Also, Jules Frebault, Goldman Sachs executive said in a statement the investment bank had been “impressed by AIG’s pan-African operations.

The report affirmed that despite the opportunities presented by the continent, the experience of those online can vary greatly according to internet speeds and network coverage which is reflected in online spending habits in Nigeria.

It further affirmed that a 2013 report by consultancy McKinsey suggested that only 1.5 percent of Nigeria’s nearly $500 billion economy took place online.

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