The Director General of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Mounir Gwarzo, has said that SEC plans to stop the printing of annual reports and accounts. He said this yesterday at the post third quarter Capital Market Committee (CMC) press briefing in Lagos.
“Presently, some companies have more than one million shareholders and you can imagine the cost of printing annual reports for them. We think it is better for the investors because he is going to have access to the electronic copy and also on the part of the company. How should we be doing something for the past 50 years and it is not adding value to the investors and the companies. Even for the benefit of change, let’s change and see how it is going to help us.” said Mounir Gwarzo.
He further said that more than N1 billion will be saved yearly by listed companies as a result of the plan to stop the printing of Annual Reports and Accounts and that 98% of shareholders besides institutional investors do not get their Annual Reports before the Annual General Meeting, AGM, of their companies.
However, Mounir Gwarzo has said that both soft and hard copy of the Reports would be issued concurrently at the initial stage of phasing out the hard copy version of Annual Reports before the first quarter CMC meeting in March, 2018.
He also said that the SEC has introduced the e-capital market registration system form which would integrate direct cash settlement and e-dividend mandate form into one.
Na wa o! Mr Gwarzo didn’t even think of the printer guys in Shomolu that had invested millions in buying heavy printing machines just for the purpose of printing the annual report at lightning speed. It is not the printer’s fault that shareholders get the report late.
GOOD IDEAL PLEASE GO AHEAD