Goddy Egene
The board of directors of Linkage Assurance Plc is seeking shareholders’ approval to raise fresh capital in order to comply with the new share capital requirements for insurance firms as stipulated by National Insurance Commission (NAICOM).
To this end, the company has convened an extra-ordinary general meeting (EGM) for October in Lagos, where the board would be authorised to raise fresh funds. In a notification to the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE), yesterday, Linkage Assurance Plc asked shareholders to increase its authorised share capital from N7.5 billion to N15 billion by the creation of additional 15 billion ordinary shares of 50 kobo each.
The shareholders were also expected to authorise the director to raise additional equity capital for the company up to the maximum limit of the authorised share capital whether by way of special placement or public offer, rights issue or other methods or a combination of any of them either locally or internationally and upon such terms and conditions as the directors may deem fit in the interest of company and subject to the approval of regulatory authorities.
Only last week, WAPIC Insurance Plc applied to the NSE to raise about N5.932 billion from existing shareholders through a right issue.
Specifically, WAPIC Insurance applied to make a right issue of 15,613,194,623 ordinary shares of 50 kobo each at 38 kobo per share on the basis of seven new ordinary shares for every six ordinary shares held.
Shareholders of WAPIC Insurance Plc had last June approved that the authorised capital base be increased to N15 billion in the light of ongoing recapitalisation exercise in insurance industry.
Meanwhile, the stock market opened for the week on a negative note as the NSE All-Share Index fell by 0.15 per cent to close at 27,657.27, while market capitalisation shed N20.2 billion to be at N13.5trillion. Based on this, the year-to-date decline has worsened to 12 per cent.
Also, activity level declined as volume and value traded fell by 38.2 per cent and 85 per cent to 109.6 million units and N888.2 million respectively. The most active stocks by volume were FBN Holdings Plc (20.3 million shares), Transcorp (9.8 million shares) and Access Bank plc (9.7 million shares) while FBN Holdings Plc (N114.3 million), Dangote Cement Plc (N102.9 million) and Zenith Bank Plc (N84.5 million) led by value.
