Dipo Olowookere
By Dipo Olowookere
One of the two core investors in Meyer Plc, a leading paint maker in Nigeria, Greenwich Trust Nominees Limited, has exited the company.
Business Post gathered from the audited financial statements of Meyer for the year ended December 31, 2019, that Greenwich Trust Nominees Limited controls 30.77 percent stake in the firm, while Bosworth Investment and Services Limited controls 25.93 percent.
The total number of shares of Greenwich Trust in the paint manufacturer is 153,129,750 units. This excludes the 24,315,094 (4.89 percent) held by Greenwich Asset Management.
As at the close of business of December 31, 2019, Bosworth had a total of 129,046,000 units of Meyer Plc stocks in its possession.
According to the notification of share dealing by insiders released by Meyer, Greenwich Trust has offloaded all its stake in the company.
It was disclosed that the core investor sold all its 153,019,326 units of Meyer shares at a unit price of 46 kobo on Monday, March 30, 2020.
On the other hand, Bosworth increased its stake in the firm by purchasing additional units of the company’s shares on Monday, March 30, 2020.
It was stated that Bosworth bought 24,915,094 units of Meyer Plc’s equities at the rate of 46 kobo each, amounting to N11.5 million.
It was observed that Bosworth bought the 24,315,094 units held by Greenwich Asset Management. It then acquired an additional 600,000 units.
This transaction has ostensibly made Bosworth the highest shareholder of Meyer Plc with about 30.82 percent equity stake in the company.
In the same disclosure, Meyer Plc said its chairman, Mr Falowo Olukayode Akintunde, raised his stake in the company by purchasing additional 13,280,223 units of the firm’s equities at 46 kobo on Monday, March 30, 2020.
In addition, a director at the company, Uponi Anthony Chukuba, bought 3,298,804 stocks at 46 kobo each on the same day.
In 1994, about 68 percent of Meyer’s issued share capital was acquired by Dunlop Nigeria Plc, leading to the change of the corporate and brand name to DN Meyer Plc and Meyer Paints respectively.
In 2004, Dunlop sold its stake to ACIMS Limited and the Nigerian public through a Management Buy Out (MBO) and in 2010, ACIMS Limited sold its total stake to Citiprops Limited.
In 2017, following the successful rights issue, Citiprops offload all its shares in the firm to Greenwich Trust Nominees Ltd and Greenwich Asset Management Ltd, putting about 35.6 percent stake in the company in their control.
It is important to note that on July 1, 2016, at the 44th Annual General Meeting (AGM) of the company, shareholders passed a resolution for the change of the firm’s name to Meyer Plc from DN Meyer Plc after the exit of Dunlop Nigeria.
