By Dipo Olowookere
A mid-level Nigerian lender, Wema Bank Plc, has commenced its rights issue for raising about N40 billion from its existing shareholders.
Subscription for the rights issue commenced on Monday, December 11, 2023, and will conclude on Friday, December 29, 2023, according to details of the exercise.
Business Post reports that the financial institution is offering a total of 8,572,103,573 ordinary shares of 50 Kobo each at N4.66 per share, amounting to N39.946 billion.
Interested shareholders would be able to partake in the rights issue by taking up two new ordinary shares for every three ordinary shares held as of the close of business on September 28, 2023.
The shares to be taken up by qualifying investors will rank pari-pasu in all respects with the issued ordinary shares of Wema Bank.
The lead issuing house for the transaction is Greenwich Merchant Bank, while the joint issuing house if Qualinvest Capital Limited.
Information gathered by Business Post showed that 67.94 per cent of the funds from the exercise would be used to deepen the lender’s retail and commercial loan portfolio for 13 months, 21.88 per cent would be used by the bank to increase its lending capacity to the SME sector for 15 months, 8.21 per cent would be earmarked to improve IT infrastructure to strengthen the company’s digital play (ALAT) for 10 months, while 1.97 per cent would be used for the rights issue as processing fees.
Modupe Gbadeyanka 
Adedapo Adesanya