By Modupe Gbadeyanka
About 30 percent stake in NEM Insurance Plc, amounting to 1.6 billion ordinary shares of the Nigerian insurer, has been purchased by unnamed new investors.
The shares were sold by a key stakeholder in the company, VFD Group, which conducted the sale in collaboration with others.
It was disclosed that the transaction occurred at year end 2018, closing at a significant premium to the closing price on the floor of the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE).
According to a statement issued by the firm, “A combined block of one billion, six hundred million (1,600,000,000) ordinary shares of NEM Insurance Plc, representing about 30 percent of the latter’s issued share capital, was sold to new shareholders.
“The trade which happened at year end 2018 closed at a significant premium to the closing price on the floor of the Exchange.
“We have had extensive discussions with the management and board of NEM Insurance Plc in the last couple of months over our interest in working with the team, to unlock the latent value we see in them.
“However, as we could not agree on the modalities for working together in pursuing this vision, we recently reached an amicable understanding and have thus decided to exit our investment in this great company.
“We wish the management and board well in their visionary leadership of the company, given its huge potentials.”Business Post reports that the share price of NEM Insurance closed at the market on Thursday at N1.91k per unit. But as at the time of filing this report at 11am on Friday, it was trading at N1.72k per share.
