By Dipo Olowookere
Access Bank Plc has applied to list additional shares on the trading platform of the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE), Business Post has reliably gathered.
The new shares, a total of 6,617,253,991 ordinary shares of 50 kobo each, arose from the acquisition of Diamond Bank Plc, a company whose shares have been placed on full suspension by the market regulator.
Business Post learned that the application filed by Access Bank for the additional shares listing has already been approved.
The approval, according to what we gathered and from the document seen, was granted before the close of work on Friday, March 29, 2019.
Access Bank and Diamond Bank merged to become an entity and the new brand is expected to commence operations on Monday, April 1, 2019 (tomorrow).
In the letter to the NSE, Access Bank specifically stated that it was seeking “approval to list 6,617,253,991 ordinary shares of 50 kobo each resulting from a scheme of merger between Access Bank Plc and Diamond Bank Plc.”
At the moment, Access Bank has a total of 28,927,971,631 shares outstanding and with last Friday’s approval of the addition shares, Access Bank will rise to 35,545,225,622 shares outstanding. The new shares should be admitted on the trading platform of the NSE in some days’ time, an insider informed us at the weekend.
Business Post reports that the shares of Access Bank closed at N6.45k per unit at the last trading session, higher than N6.35k per share of the previous trading day.
Modupe Gbadeyanka 
Aduragbemi Omiyale