Dipo Olowookere
By Dipo Olowookere
Additional shares of a leading pharmaceutical company in Nigeria, Fidson Healthcare Plc, have been listed on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE).
Information gathered by Business Post showed that the firm offered a total of 586,360,250 ordinary shares of 50 kobo for admission on the local bourse.
Further information revealed that these equities were listed at N4.00 per unit, adding a total of N2.345 billion to the value of the company.
According to a document of the listing, the new shares of Fidson Healthcare were issued on the basis of one new ordinary share for every two ordinary shares held as at December 28, 2018.
Business Post reports that the NSE admitted these additional shares on its trading platform on Monday, July 1, 2019.
Recall that earlier this year, the board of Fidson Healthcare Plc announced that its proposed rights issue would commence from Wednesday, March 6 to Tuesday, April 9, 2019.
At the exercise, the firm said it was planning to sell 750 million units of its shares 50 kobo each at N4 per unit on the basis of one new ordinary share for every two ordinary shares held.
Before then, the firm had initially said it was selling through rights issue a total of 900 million ordinary shares of 50 kobo each at N5 per unit on the basis of three new ordinary shares for every five ordinary shares held as at the close of business on Thursday, July 5, 2018.
However, when the share price of the stock dropped below N5 at the stock market, the company approached the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to readjust the rights issue, which was granted.
Fidson plans to use proceeds from the rights issue to refinance some expensive debts, strengthen the working capital position of the business and fund some strategic capital expenditure.
Recently, Fidson signed an agreement with GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) Nigeria Plc, which the firm said should bring about growth in its profit as well as revenue.
In 2018 financial year, the leading pharmaceutical manufacturing company in Nigeria established in 1995, recorded a loss after tax of N97.5 million against the profit after tax of N1.1 billion a year earlier, while the profit before tax dropped to 160.9 million from N1.6 billion.
However, its revenue increased to N16.2 billion from N14.1 billion, while the operating profit dropped to N2.1 billion from N2.6 billion, with the gross profit going down to N6.3 billion from N7.2 billion.
