NEM Insurance Shareholders to Get 9 Bonus Shares for Every 10

By Dipo Olowookere

The board of directors of NEM Insurance Plc is proposing to allot bonus shares to shareholders of the company.

A notice from the underwriting firm disclosed that the bonus would be given on a ratio of 9:10; nine bonus stocks for every 10 held by investors of the company.

This development will lead to the creation of 4,719,497,087 ordinary shares of 50 kobo of the organisation, which will rank pari pasu with the existing shares in all respect and will be treated for all purposes as capital and not as income.

The firm said the shares would be given to shareholders whose names appear in the company’s register of members at the close of business on Monday, November 23, 2020.

It said the register of members and the transfer books of the organisation will be closed from November 30 to December 4, 2020, both dates inclusive for the purpose of updating the register, while the bonus shares will be distributed to beneficiaries on December 16, 2020.

In the disclosure, the board of NEM Insurance is proposing to take funds from the company’s share premium account and the retained earnings account to pay for the new shares.

The board noted that it intends to access N272,551,000 from the share premium account and N2,087,197,543 from the retained earnings account, totalling N2,359,748,543.

But before this can be done, the board is seeking the approval of shareholders and has called for an extraordinary general meeting (EGM).

It was disclosed that this meeting will take place on Thursday, December 10, 2020, at 9am at the Conference Room, NEM House on Ikorodu Road, Obanikoro, Lagos.

In order to comply with the government’s COVID-19 protocols, the gathering will be attended by a few persons but most shareholders can be part of the proceedings from the live stream from the venue.

Business Post reports that NEM Insurance, which trades its equities on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) at N2.35 each at yesterday, has shares outstanding of 5,280,502,913. The new stocks will increase this to 10,000,000,000.