By Dipo Olowookere
Shareholders of FBN Holdings Plc and the investing community anticipating the release of the financial statements of the company for the year ended December 31, 2021, will have to wait a little longer.
The organisation, in a notice last weekend, said the results should be ready for public consumption by the end of this month.
There have been agitations for the release of the financial statements of FBN Holdings amid issues the board had with the regulator of its flagship firm, First Bank of Nigeria Limited, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) in the year under review.
Last year, the central bank revealed that it supported the company with some funds to prevent it from going down and causing panic in the financial sector.
This revelation arose from the board crisis that rocked the company, which led to the removal of the managing director of First Bank, Mr Adesola Adeduntan. The apex bank later reinstated him and removed the board.
These issues have prompted an appetite for the financial statements of the organisation, with the delay in releasing them causing people to ask questions.
However, the board has calmed the nerves of agitators, assuring that the results should be out in the coming days. FBN Holdings is the only tier-one bank yet to make its financial performance known to investors.
In the notice released last week, the lender explained that the delay was because it was yet to receive the nod of the CBN.
After the board approves financial statements, they are forwarded to the regulators, especially those operating in the financial services, for scrutiny before they are filed to the Nigerian Exchange (NGX) Limited, which then published the results on its platform.
“FBN Holdings Plc wishes to notify the Nigerian Exchange Limited and the investing public that the company was unable to file and publish its Unaudited Financial Statements (Q’1 2022 UFS) for the first quarter ended March 31, 2022, by April 30, 2022, as required under the Rules of the NGX.
“The company’s inability to publish was due to the delays in finalizing the Audited Financial Statements (FY 2021 AFS) of the group for the year ended December 31, 2021. The FY 2021 AFS was concluded and submitted to the company’s primary regulator on April 29, 2022.
“FBNH plans to publish both the FY 2021 AFS and the 01 2022 UFS on or before May 30, 2022, by which time the necessary approval would have been obtained from our primary regulator,” the notice from the organisation read.
Modupe Gbadeyanka