18 QUOTED COMPANIES SEEK ACCOUNT FILING EXTENSION

No fewer than 18. quoted companies have sort extension of filing date for 2016 annual report with the Nigerian stock exchange so far this month.

This was in an attempt to stay within quotation rules that demand such filing within 90 days after the year end. Most of these reports were thus due at most by March 30 and so, they sort to explain the reason for the delay or even ask for more time.

The reasons given by most of the 18 companies who either filed late or asked for extension can be grouped into three categories.

The first were those handicapped by inability to obtain waiver from the Financial Reporting Council for authorised signatories to sign the report. Ashaka Cement; Tantalizers; Nahco Advance; Unity Capital; Arbico and Secure Electronic found themselves in these group.

According to letters written mostly by their company secretaries, they needed to obtain waiver from the FRC so as to enable, in most cases, the audit committee chairman sign his committee's portion.

The second category were those held to ransom by the need to obtain prior approval of their regulatory authorities before making such annual reports public.

Among those who, through official letters, fingered this as the main reason since March deadline were five banks or finance groups: FBN Holdings; Unity Bank; Ecobank Transnational; Diamond Bank and Fidelity bank.

In the case of Ecobank, the delay was over and tomorrow, April 18, the report will be officially released to the Nigerian and Ghana stock exchanges accompanied by a conference on it with media and other publics on the same day.

Also included in this category were three insurance companies seeking prior approval of National Insurance Commission before releasing the reports: Equity Assurance; Standard Alliance ; and Cornerstone Insurance.

The third category were those who pointed fingers at their own issues awaiting resolution or that had just been resolved.

Ikeja Hotel, for example, according to Company Secretary, Olumuyiwa Adefope, was delayed by "protracted crisis on the board of directors" which had been resolved and hopefully, filing will now be on or befire july 31, this year.

On the other hand, Fortis Micro Finance asked for more time because, says company secretary, Victor Aderemi Emerson, its new status of national micro finance bank with new braches outside Abuja imposed more extensive and time consuming audit.

On the part of Computer Warehouse Group plc, says company secretary, Folashade Afolabi Modebelu, consolidation of group accounts was delayed because some foreign subsudiaries were yet to conclude audit of their 2016 accounts. Now, it is hoped that the consolidated figures will be filed later this month.

Also in this category was LASACO Assurance which, says company secretary, Gertrude Olutekunbi, had to delay because its external auditors did not include "key audit matters" in their audit opinion. This took some time to correct.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

2018: TWO BLOWS TO UNITED CAPITAL PLC.

When a child who in a previous examination scored 80%, comes home with a new report in which he now scores 67.2%, the parents have a right to sit him down and ask how come. So it must be between Nigeria's United Capital Plc and its discerning shareholders since the release of the company's 2018 audited figures. In 2018, all said and done, says the annual report, United Capital ended with 67.2 % profit margin compared to 80.2% in 2017. How come? What comes across from the figures was that the company received 2 blows to the jugular in 2018: Sharp drops in Investment income and fair value gain. Investment income dropped by 10.8% to N4422.8m from N4965.2m while fair value on financial assets plunged by 79.7% to N6.173m from 2017's N30.387m. In view of both drops, the group's gross earnings grew by only 33.9% to N9259.4m despite strong growths in net trading income, and net operating income leap to N757.5m from N143.5m  Other income streams ended with single digit increase....
Read more

KENYA AUCTIONS Ksh 13.84bn Treasury Bonds.

The Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) will from Tuesday December 18 to 27th 2018_ auction Ksh 13.84bn worth of fixed income Treasury Bonds with issue date December 17, 2018. According to official statement from the Director of Financial Markets Irene Njiru on Monday December 17, auction will continue throughout the stated period or close once the target money to be raised is reached, whichever comes first. Bid value will be paid for at most by 2pm December 31, 2018 while auction results will be made public on December 28, 2018 after the scheduled closing date. The bonds are being issued at 12.502% fixed interest at an adjusted average price of Ksh 100.468 for Ksh 100 bond. However, price payable after auction results publication will be average of successful bid prices based and allotment will be on first come first served basis. Meanwhile, the monetary operations and debt management department has released the interest payment schedule for 13 Treasury Bonds due January and February 2019. Th...
Read more

NAIROBI SE's HIGH PRICED EQUITIES.

In the wake of Nigeria's high priced quoted companies posted in this blog a while ago, Henates took a look to at Nairobi Securities Exchange June 23 official list to identify its high priced equities and the outcome was interesting too. Of the 66 companies quoted on the market by June 23, 15 or 22.7% were valued averagely at above 30 times nominal value. A word of caution though: There are two clear differences between the Nigerian stock market list and that of Nairobi: In the Nigerian one most listed companies have par or nominal value of N0.50 as is there is an implied agreement on this. On the other hand, at Nairobi most of the equities do not share common par value, they differ greatly. Then another thing, Nigerian equities are not valued below par, Nairobi ones can and many are so valued. Of the top 15 high priced equities at the Nairobi market, Safaricom topped with because by June 23, at 23.25 Ksh average price, it was valued 465 times its nominal value of just 0.0...
Read more