**Allocation to be Completed March 19
By Dipo Olowookere
Last year, the board of Lafarge Africa Plc announced a rights issue worth N89.2 billion aimed to assist the cement firm generate more revenue and increase its market share.
The exercise opened on December 17, 2018, with a total of 7,434,367,256 ordinary shares of 50 kobo each offered for sale on the basis of six ordinary shares for every seven ordinary shares held as at December 4, 2018 at N12 per share.
Details of the exercise revealed that during the exercise, which closed on January 28, 2019, a total of 1,826 acceptances for 7,434,367,256 units valued at N89,212,407,072 were received from shareholders.
According to Lafarge Africa, 1,826 Acceptance Forms for 7,434,367,256 units of the rights issue received were found to be valid under the terms of the exercise and were processed accordingly.
In addition, 1,734 shareholders accepted their rights issue in full totaling 5,931,501,457 ordinary shares, out of which 738,731,071 ordinary shares were traded on the floor of the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE).
Also, 92 shareholders with a provisional allotment of 395,875,060 ordinary shares partially accepted their rights for 202,401,994 ordinary shares.
Lafarge Africa said as a result of the above, the balance of 193,473,066 ordinary shares were renounced, with 34 subscribers purchasing rights of 738,731,071 ordinary shares on the floor of the NSE.
It was further said that of the 1,734 shareholders who took up their rights in full, 734 shareholders also applied for additional 1,300,463,805 ordinary shares and were allotted in full from the renounced rights, while a total of 1,106,990,739 ordinary shares were fully renounced, bringing the total number of shares renounced to 1,300,463,805 ordinary shares.
Lafarge Africa stated that all the allotments have been cleared by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), while the Registrars to the offer, CardinalStone Registrars Limited, will credit the shares allotted to the CSCS accounts of applicants who have indicated their CSCS account numbers on their respective application forms with the shares allotted not later than March 19, 2019.
It was stressed that surplus monies due to subscribers will be returned within five working days of approval of allotment of securities in accordance with the rules and regulations of the commission.
