TheCable

The Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) has delisted the entire issued share capital of First Aluminium Nigeria from its daily official list.

Godstime Iwenekhai, NSE’s head of listings regulation department, said the shares were delisted on Wednesday after the company applied for a delisting.

Iwenekhai said that the delisting was further to its market bulletin of May 13 which notified dealing members of the suspension of trading in the shares of the company in preparation for the voluntary delisting.

Trading of the shares was suspended in May ahead of the voluntary delisting.

The NSE notified dealing members that in preparation for the voluntary delisting of the issued share capital of First Aluminium, Apel Asset Limited, on behalf of First Aluminium, had requested that the issued share capital of the company be placed on suspension.

First Aluminium, had earlier, explained to shareholders that the current illiquidity in the capital market had rendered the primary corporate objective of its listing to raise capital and provide liquidity unattainable.

It said it was seeking a voluntary delisting from the main board of the NSE as there had been little or no trading activity on the shares held by the minority shareholders over the last seven years.

The company said neither it nor any shareholder was benefitting from the continued listing on the NSE.

“The majority shareholders (with over 75 per cent shareholding) are the promoters of the transaction and the majority shareholders wish to offer other shareholders (the minority shareholders) the opportunity to either remain shareholders of the unlisted company or accept a consideration for their shares which the majority shareholders are willing to purchase,” it said.