The Nigerian Stock Exchange says it has granted Continental Reinsurance approval to delist.
The NSE said in its Listings Report that Continental Reinsurance had filed an application for voluntary delisting from its daily official list.
It said the delisting was consequent upon a scheme of arrangement between Continental Reinsurance and the holders of its fully paid ordinary shares of 50 kobo each.
The Managing Director, Continental Reinsurance, Dr Olufemi Oyetunji, said under the scheme of arrangement, there were plans to transfer the various subsidiaries of the group to CRe Investments to enable CRe Nigeria shore up its balance sheets and capital required for maintaining and expanding the business.
He noted that under the restructuring, the company’s shares would be transferred to CRe Investments in exchange for shares in CRe Investments.
He said, “As consideration for the transfer of the shareholders’ shares in CRe Nigeria to CRe Investments under the new scheme, shareholders have the option to receive 1 ordinary share of $1 each in the capital of CRe Investments for 176 ordinary share of 50 kobo each in the capital of CRe Nigeria as at the effective date.
“The second option is for them to receive N2.04 per ordinary share of 50 kobo each held by the shareholders as at the effective date.
Oyetunji added that 92.66 per cent of shareholders voted in favour of the restructuring, while 7.34 per cent voted against it.
According to him, shareholders that choose to remain with the company can either decide to receive dividends from the company and bring more money back or to not receive dividends at all.
He added that the restructuring would give room for more attraction of capital to the company.
The NSE said the company’s delisting approval was granted on December 31, 2019.
However, the company had in December 2018 said it had no interest in delisting or not delisting.
Oyetunji said, “Let me emphasise that from the ongoing scheme of arrangement, we have no interest about delisting or not delisting.
“With the consequence of what we have done and because we could not take everybody or individuals to Mauritius, we now have only two or three shareholders and one of the shareholders being the nominee vehicle.
“Generally, the number of our shareholders should not be different if they elect to stay in the nominee vehicle. However, in terms of individual entities, the advisers would follow up with the stock exchange on that.
“We have a strategy plan until 2020, which remains unchanged. What this arrangement gives us is the ability to attract more capital into this company. We cannot carve out the assets of the company because we need to build more assets and capacity for us to be relevant going forward.”
Oyetunji said there was no way capital or asset was going out of the company.
He said for the stock market, it depended on what the rules of the Securities and Exchange Commission dictated in terms of the number of shares.
According to him, Nigeria is 40 per cent of the business across Africa and the most significant.
He said, “Our interest in Africa is a permanent interest and not a long interest. Nigeria continues and will always be the largest element. Our focus and amount of capital to be dedicated to Nigeria will only continue to increase. We are not exiting, because we want to write more businesses in Nigeria.”
The NSE said Chapel Hill Denham Securities Limited and PAC Securities Limited acted as stockbrokers to Continental Reinsurance while Chapel Hill Denham Advisory Limited acted as the issuing house.