By Dipo Olowookere
One of the major issues bedevilling the capital market in Nigeria is unclaimed dividends and despite efforts of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to reduce it, it has been rising lately.
Before now, companies were required to send dividend warrants to shareholders via post to their residences, but SEC changed this style to electronic.
Under the new system, shareholders are required to fill a form with bio-data as well as the bank accounts and the bank verification number (BVN) to aid the payment of the cash reward directly into their accounts.
But since this policy came into being, the issue has remained and different factors have been attributed to this, including the stockbrokers, registrars and others.
Also, there have been speculations that some investors do not know they have funds somewhere in form of an unclaimed dividend, prompting the idea of publishing a list of shareholders with unclaimed dividends in the public domain.
Though this system has been applauded, there are fears that it may not be effective and there have also been concerns about exposing beneficiaries to unnecessary attention.
On Tuesday, June 8, 2021, the board of Nestle Nigeria Plc informed the investing community that it would publish the list of unclaimed dividends of its shareholders on Friday in two of the national newspapers in the country.
The firm said it was making the list public in compliance with the provisions of section 429(1) of the Companies and Allied Matters Act 2020.
In the list seen by Business Post, the company has a total of 17,206 Nestle shareholders yet to receive the reward for their investment in the company.
The full list can be viewed below;
