A total of nine companies were delisted from the Nigerian Stock Exchange in 2019. This wiped N165.11bn off the market capitalisation.
The latest data obtained from the NSE showed that two of the companies were delisted due to regulatory reasons, one was due to a merger and six delisted purely on voluntary reasons.
Skye Bank Plc and Fortis Microfinance Bank Plc were delisted for regulatory reasons while Diamond Bank Plc merged with Access Bank Plc.
The remaining seven companies applied for delisting voluntarily.
Great Nigeria Insurance was delisted from the NSE on January 25, 2019 following the company’s voluntary application to delist.
The company’s delisting wiped N1.91bn off the total market capitalisation.
The shareholders of the company had in July 2018 approved the company’s plans to delist from the NSE.
Bada Aluko, the chairman, Great Nigeria Insurance, said the company’s decision to duelist from the NSE was as a result of no trading on its shares for over five years.
He said neither the company nor shareholders were benefiting from the continued listing as shares were not getting any exit opportunity and investments had been locked up while the company was bearing unnecessary cost in complying with its listing obligations.
A member of the Independent Shareholders Association of Nigeria, Sunday Akinsoye, while speaking at the company’s extraordinary general meeting in 2018, said the continuous fining of the company by the NSE was destroying the investment of minority shareholders.
He noted that shareholders were unhappy with the regulator, adding that if money paid as fines was paid as dividends or invested, shareholders would be better for it.
In September 2019, Great Nigeria Insurance listed its shares on the NASD OTC Securities Exchange Plc, thereby opening up a window for trading in its shares after its exit from the NSE.
On April 1, 2019, the NSE delisted Diamond Bank from its daily official list.
Diamond Bank was acquired by Access Bank in December 2018 while it planned to complete the transactions of the merger fully in the first half of 2019.
On April 1, Diamond Bank was fully merged with Access Bank to build a new entity while retaining the name of Access Bank with a logo that took the form of Diamond Bank.
The N56.05bn market capitalisation of Diamond Bank was added to that of Access Bank.
Newrest ASL Nigeria Plc in February voluntarily applied to the NSE to delist all its shares.
On May 15, the NSE delisted the shares of the company from its daily official list, which wiped N4.34bn off the market capitalisation.
While the NSE said the company’s application to delist was as a result of its inability to meet up with the 20 per cent free float requirement, Newrest ASL said its decision to delist was because “the illiquidity nature of the capital market rendered the primary corporate objective of the listing to raise capital and provide liquidity unattainable.”
The firm said there was a significant drop in its trading volumes from 78,094,753 units in the 2017 financial year to 9,029,052 units in the 2018 financial year.
It said neither the company nor its shareholders were benefitting from the continued listing on the NSE.
First Aluminium Nigeria Plc, on July 31, had its shares delisted from the NSE, taking N844m off the total market capitalisation.
