By Dipo Olowookere
The closed period earlier declared by the board of Access Bank Plc has now been suspended, the tier-one financial institution announced on Wednesday.
A closed period is always announced by a company ahead of the release of its financial statements. During the time, none of its top members of staff, including directors, advisers, consultants or their related persons, having vital information about the performance of the firm, is allowed to buy or sell the stocks at the market.
The reason for this is to prevent these set of people from using the information at their disposal to their advantage, at the detriment of other shareholders without such info.
Last week, Access Bank said it was commencing a closed period from January 1, 2020, till the release of its financial statements for the year ended December 31, 2019.
It also announced that its board of director was meeting on January 29, 2020 to consider and approved the financial results before forwarding them to the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) for approval before releasing them to the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE).
But in a disclosure on Wednesday, the company said it was suspending the closed period without giving any reason for this action. However, it said those earlier restricted from transacting shares of the company at the local bourse were free to do so until a new date was announced to the investing public.
“We refer to out notice to the Nigerian Stock Exchange dated December 30, 2019 wherein we announced a closed period in respect of transactions on the shares of Access Bank Plc from January 1, 2020 and January 29, 2020 as the date of board meeting to consider and approve the group’s audited financial statements for the financial year ended December 31, 2019.
“This is to notify the exchange of the suspension of the earlier announced closed period and resumption of normal transaction on the bank’s shares. New dates for the commencement of the closed period and board meeting to approve the group’s audited financial statements will be announced in due course.
“Accordingly, directors, employees, person discharging managerial responsibility, advisers to the company and their connected persons may deal in the bank’s shares subject to extant rules and regulations,” the disclosure today said.
