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Imagine spending 30 years paying off your mortgage only to realize you still have to pay thousands every year to stay in the house you already own.

That is why I believe America needs a serious conversation about property taxes, especially for retirees.

Think about someone who bought a home decades ago for $150,000.

They worked, raised a family, paid the mortgage, and eventually made that final payment.

Now the home that once cost $150,000 might now be assessed at $500,000, $700,000, or more.

Their house became more valuable, But their retirement income did not necessarily increase with it.

Now imagine that homeowner is 70 years old and living primarily on Social Security, a pension, retirement savings, or some combination of the three.

A property tax bill of $10,000, $15,000, or $20,000 a year can become a serious financial burden.

Paying off your mortgage does not eliminate your housing costs.

You still have property taxes, homeowners insurance, repairs, utilities, HOA fees in some communities, and rising maintenance costs.

I am not saying property taxes should disappear. Cities and counties need revenue for schools, police, firefighters, roads, libraries, and other public services.

But there should be a better way to protect longtime homeowners and retirees from being priced out of homes they spent decades paying for.

Maybe that means stronger homestead protections.

Maybe it means expanding senior exemptions.

Maybe increases should be capped more aggressively for long-time owner-occupied homes.

Whatever the solution, retirement should not come with the fear that rising property values could eventually make your paid-off home unaffordable.

If someone has lived in the same home for 30 or 40 years and paid off the mortgage, should their property taxes be capped once they reach retirement age?

"It’s a lack of social intelligence. When you are in Rome, you behave like a Roman. Adapt quickly or be left behind."

Yes. I read the 2025 Oando PLC Annual Report. My conclusion is: HOLD. This is a high-risk HOLD, not a comfortable one.

There is an important difference here. Oando’s main oil-and-gas business is getting stronger. But its balance sheet is still under serious financial pressure.

The annual report gives me enough evidence. I would not rush to sell an existing position. I also won't aggressively add to the position yet.

My verdict: 🟡 HOLD / WATCH CLOSELY
If I already owned Oando shares, I would:

HOLD my existing shares.

Not panic-sell simply because the share price has fallen.

Not make Oando a large part of my portfolio.

Wait for evidence that the balance-sheet restructuring is actually working before buying more.

Reassess after the 2026 results and capital restructuring progress.

Why? Let's break it down.

1. The business itself is substantially better
This is the strongest argument for holding.

Oando completed the $783 million acquisition of Nigerian Agip Oil Company (NAOC) in 2024. This deal greatly expanded its upstream assets. It also gave Oando operatorship of OMLs 60–63. The first full year after the acquisition produced meaningful operational improvement.

Production increased 32%
Working-interest production rose from about 24,537 boepd to:

32,482 boepd — +32%

Crude production increased 36%, while gas production increased 24%.

That's significant.

The company is targeting:

40,000–50,000 boepd working-interest production in 2026.

And its medium-term ambition is even larger:

100,000 bopd of liquids + 1.5 bcfd of gas

If Oando executes this plan, the company could be much more valuable in a few years.

2. Revenue fell, but profitability remained strong
This is where I wouldn't look at the headline revenue decline and immediately conclude that the company is deteriorating.

Revenue fell approximately 22%, from ₦4.1 trillion to ₦3.2 trillion.

But Oando still generated:

Metric2025Revenue₦3.2tnGross profit₦93.3bnOperating profit₦241bnProfit after tax₦204.8bnOperating cash flow₦258.3bn

That tells me something important:

The enlarged business is capable of producing substantial cash.

Profit attributable to Oando shareholders was about ₦204.0bn, translating into basic EPS of approximately ₦23.

So operationally, this isn't a company whose underlying business is collapsing.

3. Production and reserves are the biggest reason I wouldn't sell
Oando ended 2025 with:

928 million barrels of oil equivalent (MMboe) of 2P reserves.

That's a substantial resource base.

And Oando isn't merely sitting on reserves.

It is now the operator.

That changes the investment story.

Before NAOC, Oando was a smaller participant in these assets. Now it has significantly greater ownership and operating control.

The company says gross production from OMLs 60–63 averaged approximately 74,000 boepd in 2025.

If management can increase production while controlling costs and debt, shareholder value could rise considerably.

4. BUT — here is the BIG problem 🚨
This is the part that would stop me from saying "BUY."

Oando is highly leveraged.
At December 2025:

Total borrowings: ₦2.695 trillion

Cash:

₦439.9 billion

Therefore:

Net debt = approximately ₦2.255 trillion

And the group's gearing ratio was:

134%
up from 116% in 2024.

That's very high.

This is the biggest risk in the investment.

5. And most of the debt is in US dollars
This is another major concern for a Nigerian investor.

Of Oando's ₦2.695 trillion borrowings:

₦2.611 trillion was USD-denominated.

That's roughly 97% of the group's borrowings.

This creates a huge currency risk.

If the naira weakens significantly, the naira value of the debt increases.

And the company explicitly recognizes this risk.

A 12% move in the USD affects the group's equity by hundreds of billions of naira. This impact comes from USD assets, receivables, payables, and borrowing exposure.

This is why Oando can have a fantastic oil business and still be a dangerous investment.

6. The auditors' going-concern warning is the biggest red flag
This is the part I would take very seriously.

The report states that there is:

recurring net liabilities

significant working-capital deficiency

multiple loan defaults

exposure to enforcement of security over assets

uncertainty surrounding successful ex*****on of funding plans

The auditors identified a material uncertainty that may raise serious doubts about Oando's ability to continue operating.

That is not a small accounting footnote.

It is probably the single most important paragraph in the entire annual report for an investor.

7. But there is a reason I DON'T say SELL
Because management is actively trying to fix the problem.

Shareholders approved major capital restructuring initiatives, including:

Up to ₦500 billion equity capital raise
Up to US$300 million debt-to-equity conversion
Up to US$1.5 billion multi-instrument issuance programme
These measures could materially improve Oando's balance sheet.

And management has already restructured some major facilities and increased the Afreximbank RBL facility to $375 million.

So there is a credible route out of the problem.

But "credible route" isn't the same thing as "problem solved."

That's why I would HOLD rather than BUY.

8. Another important positive: cash generation
Oando generated:

₦258.3 billion operating cash flow
in 2025.

That's encouraging.

The company is therefore not relying entirely on accounting profits.

There is actual operating cash coming from the business.

However, the cash has to serve a very large debt burden.

That's the problem.

Think of it this way:

The engine is getting stronger, but the car is carrying a very heavy load.

If Oando increases production substantially and uses the resulting cash to reduce debt, the investment case becomes much stronger.

9. Oando's gas business could become extremely valuable
I actually think investors may be underestimating this part.

Oando has approximately:

2 Bscfd gas processing capacity
and 2025 gross gas production averaged:

292.5 MMscfd
It also has approximately:

930 MW installed gas-to-power generation capacity.
Nigeria has a massive electricity and industrial gas deficit.

So Oando isn't simply an oil producer.

The potential evolution is:

Oil → Gas → Gas processing → Power → Energy infrastructure

That could create a more diversified energy business over time.

10. The 2025 results also contain a hidden warning about cash conversion
There's something I don't want us to overlook.

The cash flow statement shows a significant working capital movement.

Receivables increased by approximately:

₦1.476 trillion

while payables increased by approximately:

₦1.414 trillion.

That tells me the company's cash-generation picture is complicated.

Oando can report ₦204.8bn profit and ₦258.3bn operating cash flow, but the balance sheet is still under considerable working-capital pressure.

This is another reason I wouldn't classify Oando as a low-risk blue-chip investment.

11. There is also dilution risk
This is VERY important for existing shareholders.

Oando has authorized a potential:

₦500 billion equity raise.

If new shares are issued at a low price, existing shareholders could experience dilution.

However, the company has also approved a debt-to-equity conversion.

That means part of the debt burden could potentially be converted into equity rather than simply remaining as debt.

So we have two competing effects:

Positive: Debt ↓ → financial risk ↓

Negative: Shares outstanding ↑ → existing shareholders' ownership percentage ↓

The ultimate effect depends heavily on the terms of the restructuring.

12. The treasury-share distribution is also important
Oando distributed shares to qualifying shareholders.

The report states that about 1.28 billion shares were to be distributed in Phase 1. The first tranche included 679.36 million shares.

The second tranche was subsequently completed in March/April 2026 according to the report's subsequent-events disclosures.

This is important because shareholders received value in the form of shares rather than simply cash dividends.

So when assessing your total return, don't look only at Oando's share price.

You need to consider:

Oando share price + value of shares distributed + dividends/cash distributions.

My investment scorecard
If I were evaluating Oando as an investment today based primarily on this annual report:

Area: My assessment
Oil and gas assets: 🟢 Excellent
Production growth: 🟢 Strong
Reserves: 🟢 Strong
Gas opportunity: 🟢 Very attractive
Operating cash flow: 🟢 Positive
Profitability: 🟢 Positive
NAOC integration: 🟢 Promising
Management growth strategy: 🟢 Promising
Debt: 🔴 Very high
Gearing: 🔴 134%
FX exposure: 🔴 Very high
Liquidity: 🔴 Major concern
Going-concern risk: 🔴 Major concern
Dilution risk: 🟠 Significant
Long-term potential: 🟢 High
Current financial safety: 🔴 Low

So, should YOU hold or sell?
My answer: HOLD — for now.
But I would classify Oando as:

A high-risk, potentially high-reward turnaround/growth investment.

I would NOT classify it as a traditional "buy and forget" Nigerian blue-chip stock.

The investment thesis is basically:

NAOC acquisition → higher production → higher cash flow → debt restructuring → lower leverage → stronger earnings → higher valuation.

If those steps happen, Oando could do very well.

But if the debt restructuring fails, the enormous leverage could overwhelm the operational improvements.

What would make me SELL?
I would change my recommendation from HOLD → SELL/REDUCE if we see any of these:

Debt continues rising despite stronger production.

Oando fails to execute the debt-to-equity conversion/restructuring.

The ₦500bn capital raise becomes excessively dilutive.

Production fails to move toward the 40,000–50,000 boepd target.

Operating cash flow deteriorates substantially.

Major lenders begin enforcing security over assets.

Another serious going-concern warning appears.

Oil prices fall substantially while Oando's leverage remains high.

The report itself says that working-capital shortfalls and financing gaps continued affecting operations into FY2026.

That is the metric I would watch most closely.

What would make me BUY MORE?
This is the interesting part.

I would become much more bullish if Oando demonstrates:

Production ≥ 40,000 boepd

Debt falling materially

Strong operating cash flow

Successful debt-to-equity conversion

Limited shareholder dilution

Improving liquidity

That combination would fundamentally change the risk/reward equation.

Letter to Johnny — When Interest Rates Move, Markets Listen
To Johnny, a Steward Who Is Learning to See the Invisible Forces Behind the Market

Grace and wisdom be multiplied unto you, from the One who teaches that sometimes what moves the stock market isn't a company's earnings—it is something as simple as the cost of money.

Johnny, Today the Market Went Up
U.S. stocks moved higher this morning:

Dow Jones: +0.29%
S&P 500: +0.40%
Nasdaq: +0.39%

But here's the interesting part.

The big story wasn't really stocks.

It was bonds.
And more specifically...

interest rates.
Let's Make This Very Simple
Johnny, imagine you want to borrow ₦10 million.

If the person lending you the money says:

"Pay me 5% interest."

That's manageable.

But if they suddenly say:

"Pay me 15%."

You will probably think twice before borrowing.

That's exactly what happens across the economy.

When interest rates rise:
Borrowing becomes more expensive.

When interest rates fall:
Borrowing becomes cheaper.

And this affects businesses, governments, consumers...

and investors.

So What Happened Today?
The U.S. Treasury announced that it would at least double its buybacks of long-dated government debt.

Johnny, that sounds complicated.

Let's simplify it.

The U.S. government has issued many bonds.

Some of those bonds have very long maturity dates.

The Treasury is now planning to buy back more of those older, long-term bonds.

That increased demand for those bonds helped push their yields lower.

And look what happened:

10-year Treasury yield:
4.65%

30-year Treasury yield:
5.20%

Both moved lower.

Why Should Johnny Care About Treasury Yields?
Because Treasury yields influence borrowing costs across the economy.

When long-term government bond yields fall, other borrowing costs can also come under less pressure.

Think about a business.

Suppose it wants to borrow $1 billion to build a new data centre.

If borrowing costs are extremely high...

the company may say:

"Let's wait."
But if borrowing costs fall...

the company may say:

"Let's build it."
That means lower yields can potentially support:

Business investment.

Economic activity.

Stock valuations.

That's one reason investors welcomed today's move.

Now Look at Moderna
Johnny...

This is another beautiful investing lesson.

Moderna's shares more than doubled.

Why?

The company announced positive late-stage results for a melanoma vaccine developed with Merck.

Think about what just happened.

Yesterday, investors had expectations about the company.

Then new information arrived.

The information was much better than expected.

And suddenly...

the market had to revalue the company.

That's what stocks do.

Imagine You Own a Small Business
Suppose your business makes ₦10 million every year.

Then you discover a new product that could potentially make ₦100 million.

What happens to the value of your business?

It could become much more valuable.

That's essentially what investors are trying to calculate with companies like Moderna.

New information → New expectations → New valuation.
But Johnny, Be Careful
This is where I don't want you to make a mistake.

You see:

"Moderna doubled!"
And you think:

"Let me buy it tomorrow!"
No.

You missed the first part of the story.

The stock moved because new information changed investors' expectations.

After a stock doubles, you must ask:

"Is there still enough upside to justify buying at this new price?"
A stock that has doubled is not automatically cheap.

Then We Have Canada
Markets also liked the news that President Trump paused planned 50% tariffs on Canadian goods for three days while trade talks continued.

Johnny, tariffs are basically taxes placed on imported goods.

Imagine Nigeria puts a big tax on imported computers.

Those computers become more expensive.

Companies using those computers may have higher costs.

They might pass those costs to customers.

So tariffs can affect:

Prices → Inflation → Interest rates → Businesses → Stock markets.

Do you see how everything connects?

Johnny, This Is the Skill I Want You to Develop
When you read financial news, don't read each story separately.

Connect the dots.

Treasury buybacks
↓

Bond yields fall
↓

Borrowing conditions may improve
↓

Stocks can benefit
And:

Tariff pause
↓

Less immediate trade pressure
↓

Less concern about higher prices
↓

Investor confidence improves
And:

Positive drug trial
↓

Higher expectations for future revenue
↓

Company valuation changes
↓

Stock price jumps
That's how the market thinks.

The Business Lesson
Johnny, there is a bigger lesson here.

Information creates value.
A company can exist for years.

Then one discovery...

one contract...

one new product...

one breakthrough...

can dramatically change how investors value it.

That's why great investors are constantly learning.

The more you understand, the faster you recognize important information.

Your Charge
Don't become obsessed with stock prices.

Become obsessed with understanding businesses.

Don't ask:

"Why did the stock go up?"
and stop there.

Ask:

"What changed?"
Then ask:

"Is that change temporary or permanent?"
Then:

"How much of that good news is already reflected in the price?"
That is how Johnny becomes an investor.

Not by guessing.

By understanding.

He who has ears, let him hear:

The beginner sees:

"The market is green."
The investor asks:

"What happened to interest rates?"
The beginner sees:

"Moderna doubled."
The investor asks:

"What changed about the company's future?"
The beginner sees:

"Tariffs were paused."
The investor asks:

"What does that mean for inflation, businesses and the economy?"
Johnny...

Keep asking WHY.

That one question can take you very far in investing.

From your mentor in wisdom and wealth, Kim Thomas Alison Making Money & Investing Easy to Understand

In the 1920s, a Stanford psychologist tracked genius children for 50 years.

Malcolm Gladwell breaks down what he discovered:

Rich families → successful. Poor families → failures.

Not average. Failures. Genius-level IQs that produced nothing.

He spent 60 minutes at Microsoft explaining why we're wrong about success:

The psychologist was named Terman. He gave IQ tests to 250,000 California schoolchildren.

He identified the top 0.1%. Kids with IQs of 140 and above.

His hypothesis: these children would become the leaders of academia, industry, and politics.

He tracked them. And tracked them. For decades.

The results split into three groups:

The top 15% achieved real prominence. The middle group had average, moderately successful professional lives.

And the bottom group? By any measure, failures.

The difference wasn't personality. Wasn't habits. Wasn't work ethic.

It was simple: the successful geniuses came from wealthy households. The failures came from poor families.

Poverty is such a powerful constraint that it can reduce a one-in-a-billion brain to a lifetime of worse than mediocrity.

There's a concept called "capitalization rate."

It asks a simple question: what percentage of people who are capable of doing something actually end up doing that thing?

In inner city Memphis, only 1 in 6 kids with athletic scholarships actually go to college.

If our capitalization rate for sports in the inner city is 16%, imagine how low it must be for everything else.

Here's something stranger.

Gladwell read the birth dates of the 2007 Czech Junior Hockey Team:

January 3rd. January 3rd. January 12th. February 8th. February 10th. February 17th. February 20th. February 24th. March 5th. March 10th. March 26th...

11 of the 20 players were born in January, February, or March.

This isn't unique to the Czechs. Every elite hockey team in the world shows the same pattern. Every elite soccer team too.

Why?

The eligibility cutoff for youth leagues is January 1st.

When you're 10 years old, a kid born in January has 10 months of maturity on a kid born in October. That's 3 or 4 inches of height. The difference between clumsy and coordinated.

So we look at a group of 10 year olds, pick the "best" ones, give them special coaching, extra practice, more games.

We think we're identifying talent. We're just identifying the oldest.

Then we give the oldest more opportunities, and 10 years later they really are the best.

Self-fulfilling prophecy.

The capitalization rate for hockey talent born in the second half of the year? Close to zero.

We're leaving half of all potential hockey players on the table because of an arbitrary date on a calendar.

Kids born in the youngest cohort of their school class are 11% less likely to go to college.

11% of human potential squandered because we organize elementary school without reference to biological maturity.

Now here's the part about math.

Asian kids dramatically outperform Western kids in mathematics. The gap is enormous and consistent across decades of testing.

Some people say it's genetic. It's not.

It's attitudinal.

When Asian kids face a math problem, they believe effort will solve it.

When Western kids face a math problem, they believe the answer depends on innate ability they either have or don't.

Here's the proof.

The international math tests include a 120-question survey. It asks about study habits, parental support, attitudes.

It's so long most kids don't finish it.

A researcher named Erling Boe decided to rank countries by what percentage of survey questions their kids completed.

Then he compared it to the ranking of countries by math performance.

The correlation was 0.98.

In the history of social science, there has never been a correlation that high.

If you want to know how good a country is at math, you don't need to ask any math questions. Just make kids sit down and focus on a task for an extended period of time.

If they can do it, they're good at math.

Why do Asian cultures have this attitude?

Gladwell's theory: rice farming.

His European ancestors in medieval England worked about 1,000 hours a year. Dawn to noon, five days a week. Winters off. Lots of holidays.

A peasant in South China or Japan in the same period worked 3,000 hours a year.

Rice farming isn't just harder than wheat farming. It's a completely different relationship with work.

There's a Chinese proverb: "A man who works dawn to dusk 360 days a year will not go hungry."

His English ancestors would have said: "A man who works 175 days a year, dawn to 11, may or may not be hungry."

If your culture does that for a thousand years, it becomes part of your makeup.

When your kids sit down to face a calculus problem, that legacy of persistence translates perfectly.

Now consider distance running.

In Kenya, there are roughly a million schoolboys between 10 and 17 running 10 to 12 miles a day.

In the United States, that number is probably 5,000.

Our capitalization rate for distance running is less than 1%.

Kenya's is probably 95%.

The difference isn't genetic. The difference is what the culture values and where it spends its attention.

Here's the most fascinating finding.

30% of American entrepreneurs have been diagnosed with a profound learning disability.

Richard Branson is dyslexic. Charles Schwab is dyslexic. John Chambers can barely read his own email.

This isn't coincidence. Their entrepreneurialism is a direct function of their disability.

How do you succeed if you can't read or write from early childhood?

You learn to delegate. You become a great oral communicator. You become a problem solver because your entire life is one big problem. You learn to lead.

80% of dyslexic entrepreneurs were captain of a high school sports team. Versus 30% of non-dyslexic entrepreneurs.

By the time they enter the real world, they've spent their whole life practicing the four skills at the core of entrepreneurial success: delegation, oral communication, problem solving, and leadership.

Ask them what role dyslexia played in their success and they don't say it was an obstacle.

They say it's the reason they succeeded.

A disadvantage that became an advantage.

Here's what Gladwell wants you to understand:

When we see differences in success, our default explanation is differences in ability.

We forget how much poverty, stupidity, and attitude constrain what people can become.

We refuse to admit that our own arbitrary rules are leaving talent on the table.

We cling to naive beliefs that our meritocracies are fair.

The capitalization argument is liberating.

It says you don't look at a struggling group and conclude they're incapable. It says problems that look genetic or innate are often just failures of exploitation.

It says we can make a profound difference in how well people turn out.

If we choose to pay attention.