Business
PZ Blames Crisis For Drop In Sales
Soap and shampoo maker PZ Cussons has issued a second profit warning in less than four months, blaming a hit to sales from social unrest in Nigeria, its biggest single market.
Shares in the maker of Imperial Leather soaps and Carex anti-bacterial hand washes were down 10.2 percent at 1001 GMT on Tuesday after it said profits in Nigeria over the last two months had been affected by a continuation of economic and social tensions.
Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country, accounts for 30-40 percent of PZ Cussons’ total revenue.
“Given the importance of Nigeria to the group, the impact of the continuing tensions in the country will be significant, resulting in the group’s overall (year to May 31, 2012) performance being some way below expectations,” the firm said.
PZ Cussons highlighted the continuation of social instability in northern Nigeria which has directly impacted sales, and the removal of a fuel duty subsidy in January that has hit consumers’ disposable income and led to higher transport costs and port disruption, affecting both sales and costs.
Despite its current problems in Nigeria the firm expects the removal of the fuel duty subsidy to be beneficial for the medium term macroeconomic health of the country.
PZ Cussons, which also owns beauty brands Charles Worthington, Sanctuary and St Tropez, first warned of problems in Nigeria in January.
Shares in the firm were down 34 pence at 300 pence at 1001 GMT, valuing the business at about 1.26 billion pounds ($2 billion).
“This is undoubtedly a disappointing statement, and while we feel this may ultimately prove to be the bottom of the news flow cycle, we acknowledge that the outlook in Nigeria remains uncertain,” said Panmure Gordon analyst Graham Jones, who cut his 2011-12 pre-tax profit forecast by 13 percent to 89.1 million pounds.
PZ Cussons said trading in the January 25 to March 26 period in all its other markets in Europe and Asia had been in line with management expectations and was expected to be so for the balance of the year.
“Looking ahead to the new financial year commencing June 1, the group is expected to return to profitable growth in all markets including Nigeria,” it said.
It said this growth would be supported by the benefits of a major programme to cut costs in its supply chain, also announced on Tuesday.
That will see the firm close manufacturing plants in Australia and Ghana and restructure facilities in Poland.
The programme will have a cash cost of 19 million pounds, mainly for redundancies, with a further non-cash charge of 20 million pounds for asset write downs. Payback is expected within three years.
($1=0.6275 British pounds)
Cornerstone of Financial Services
A survey of more than 1 000 global finance leaders undertaken by digital payment network Ripple shows that 72% of respondents believe they need to offer a digital asset solution to remain competitive.
According to Ripple, leaders from the banking, fintech, corporate and asset management sector have made it clear that the “digital asset revolution is happening now”.
“Digital assets are quickly becoming a cornerstone of financial services, underpinned by progressive regulation, growing interest from Tier-1 banks, a steady consumer shift from banks to fintech providers, and booming stablecoin adoption,” Ripple says.
The survey was conducted in early 2026 and the findings released in March.
Stablecoin Boon or Bane?
Ripple has experienced significant success in the stablecoin sector since launching its Ripple USD (RLUSD) stablecoin in 2024.
With a market cap of $1.56 billion, it is considered a major regulated player in the market.
No doubt the platform was pleased to learn through its own survey that financial leaders were most bullish about stablecoins.
Roughly three-quarters of respondents believed they could boost cash-flow efficiency and unlock trapped working capital.
Ripple noted that finance leaders were thinking about stablecoins as more than “just a new way to execute payments”; instead, they viewed them as effective tools for treasury management.
In March 2026, Ripple began testing a new trade finance model built around RLUSD in a bid to increase the speed of cross-border payments.
The pilot initiative, developed alongside supply chain finance company Unloq [https://unloq.com], is running on the XRP Ledger inside a testing framework developed by the Monetary Authority of Singapore.
The Asian city-state is one of the platform’s biggest growth markets.
The idea behind the project is to see whether stablecoin-based settlement can streamline trade finance, too often hampered by reliance on intermediaries and slow reconciliation.
The only potential drawback is that if the initiative takes off, the Ripple to USD price could be negatively affected.
Ripple has always championed its native XRP token as a bridge asset, the “middleman” in the process of a financial institution turning dollars in the US into pounds in the UK, for example.
Ripple converts dollars into XRP and then back into pounds.
If RLUSD can do exactly the same thing, questions will be asked about XRP’s relevance.
That is a bridge Ripple will have to cross if it gets to that point.
Tokenisation Partners
Another interesting finding from Ripple’s survey is that most banks and asset managers are seeking tokenisation partners to help execute their strategies.
Some 89% of respondents said digital asset storage and custody were top priority. “Token servicing/lifecycle management also ranks highly for banks at 82%, while asset managers place greater emphasis on primary distribution at 80%,” Ripple found.
The survey also revealed that just more than half of fintechs and financial institutions want an infrastructure provider that can offer a “one-stop-shop solution”. This rose to 71% among corporate financial leaders.
Ripple attributes this to institutions and firms wanting uncomplicated, cohesive systems.
Infrastructure Rules
In its final analysis, Ripple says companies across the board are looking for partners and solutions that are “secure, compliant, battle-tested and that enable growth and execution”.
“The message is clear: infrastructure decisions made today will shape competitive positioning tomorrow.”
No surprise that this is precisely where Ripple is placing much of its focus.