By Peter OBIORA InvestAdvocate
Lagos (INVESTADVOCATE) – Africa Prudential Registrars Plc, (former UBA Registrars) said it has returned over N1.0 billion oversubscription money from its last right issue conducted in the last quarter of 2013.
Peter Ashade, managing director/chief executive officer (MD/CEO) of the company disclosed this in exclusive chat with InvestAdvocate at it’s ‘’Facts behind the Figures’’ presentation at the Nigerian stock exchange (NSE) on Thursday.
Ashade said at the moment, he cannot give the exact figure of the money returned to investors; but was sure it was over N1.0 billion.
‘’ I cannot at this moment give the exact figure, but I know is over N1.0 billion that we returned, Regulatory wise, there is a time frame attached to the payment and return of this money and the process to be followed in terms of ensuring that the payments are registered as we send it to the various shareholders; but as we speak, I can tell you categorically that at least close to 90-95% of the investors have received their return money,’’ he said.
According to him, these days are different from the past when people invest and go to sleep,
‘’people monitor their investments even before the approval; we had a lot of people that were already calling that they need their return money; so we didn’t even need to mail them. The first day that we returned money, I think more than 85 percent got theirs; because at the very first day, a lot of people that had chunk were there to collect their money. So for us more than 95% of the money has been returned,’’ he said.
The first listed registrar on the Nigerian bourse opened a rights issue to existing shareholders who were on the register as at Tuesday August 23, 2013 to raise N1.2 billion by issuing 1.0 billion ordimary shares of 50 kobo each at N1.20 kobo.
Africa Prudential has said at the end of the exercise its shares will double to 2.0 billion units. The acceptance list opened on Tuesday October, 8, 2013, while it closed on Friday November, 15, 2013.
Ashade had said that Africa Prudential Registrars had reported a 245% subscription largely due to improved investors’ confidence in the abilities of the company’s crop of directors to deliver impressive returns.
A review of the company’s 2013 audited financial statement shows that showed that revenue rose from N1.034 billion in 2012 to N1.854 billion in 2013.
Similarly, profit before tax (PBT) grew from N667 million to N1.212 billion, while its profit after tax (PAT) increased to N914 million in 2013, up from N561 million in the corresponding period of 2012.
The board of the company Thursday at its first annual general meeting (AGM) since listing on the Nigerian bourse approved the 35 kobo dividend earlier proposed to shareholders, which amounts to N700 million and will be paid tomorrow April 04 2014.
