By Peter OBIORA InvestAdvocate
Lagos (INVESTADVOCATE) – Total unclaimed dividends for collective investment schemes (CIS) in Nigeria as at December 2013 is N168.3 million.
Louise Eni-Umukoro, director, collective investment schemes at the Nigeria’s Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) disclosed this to InvestAdvocate in an e-mail she sent following enquires on the actual amount of unclaimed dividends in Nigeria’s collective investment scheme.
Eni-Umukoro had in a presentation late February at a breakfast meeting by all registered members of the fund managers association of Nigeria (FMAN) said to tackle the issue of unclaimed dividend in collective investment scheme, fund managers need to make an attempt to have electronic registers and ensure their clients provide bank accounts.
‘’In terms of unclaimed dividends, it’s amazing and I’m even saying this because I’m an investor relations officer, I had expected that before now, the fund managers would have done everything to make sure that their clients have opened bank accounts or are doing something to ensure that they are transiting to e-dividend,’’ the SEC director collective investment schemes said.
She said even the fund managers still give their clients options of issuing them warrants or paying by way of e-dividend, ‘’ I’m amazed when they say such things,’’ she said.
Eni-Umukoro told FMAN that the sector is really small and it should not be difficult to get through to their customers.
‘’Ensure that they provide a bank account, you need to work out a strategy and what we have decided is that there should be zero tolerance for unclaimed dividends, when you see the returns, you have huge unclaimed dividends in the books of the fund managers and they say they cannot reach their investors,’’ she said.
According to her, the commission is ready to work with FMAN to check this problem, ‘’We are going to work with you and where there are problems with registrars, we are trying to solve those problems; but also the fund managers need to make an attempt to have electronic registers to and to ensure that their clients provide bank accounts,’’ the SEC director collective investment schemes said.
On the issue of unclaimed dividends in the Nigerian equities market, on March 2013, the then newly inaugurated board of the Nigeria’s SEC had said that unclaimed dividends in the Nigerian capital market (NCM) has hit N60 billion mark.
Suleiman Ndanusa, the chairman of the commission at a maiden meeting with publishers and chief executive officers of media organisations in Nigeria said SEC is poised to reduce the quantum of unclaimed dividends in the Nigerian capital market.
Prior to this, Arunma Oteh, director general (DG) of SEC in February 2012 disclosed that the shareholders unclaimed dividends with quoted companies was about N40 billion.
These figures has been subjects of controversy; following pronouncements by the unclaimed dividends committee inaugurated by SEC, which put the figure at N45 billion, this is a sharp contrast with the earlier announced N60 billion.
