The Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) has fined Conoil Plc, Unity Bank, Fidelity Bank, Med-View Airline, Union Bank, Flour Mills of Nigeria, Lasaco Assurance Plc, Academy Press Plc and 37 others to the tune of N487.7 million over their failure to file their financial statements to the bourse.
In its X Compliance, which was released September 20, 2019, the NSE fined Academy Press the sum of N35 million for default filling of its 2017 audited account, the Stock Exchange has asked the management of Unity Bank to pay a total of N79.7 million over its failure to file 2017 audited, 2018 1st quarter and Half Year results to the exchange.
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While FTN Cocoa Processors was fined N78.9 million, Union Dicon Salts, Universal Insurance, Niger Insurance, Union Bank, Veritas Kapital Alliance, Conoil and Standard Alliance were slapped with N30.8 million, N19.5, N14.3 million, N4.7 million, N27.3 million, N17.6 million, and N28.1 million fines among others for similar defaults.
Where they stand on NSE: Academy Press Plc as at end of trading was at N0.35, a 5-year low on the bourse. The stock opened at N0.45 in January 2019, and closed at N0.35, down N0.10. Year to date, the stock was down by 22.2%.
Meanwhile, the firms mentioned above are among the 51 quoted companies the Exchange placed cautionary red alert as they had failed to comply fully with the comprehensive listing and corporate governance standards at the stock market.
A regulatory report obtained at the weekend flagged the deficient companies with warning codes that indicated various degrees of corporate governance weaknesses, susceptibility to illiquidity and price manipulation due to inadequate price discovery. Some of the stocks were also on delisting watchlist of the NSE.
The Compliance Status Indicator (CSI) report of the NGSE uses three-letter codes to mark out companies that fall below the post-listing requirements as part of the full disclosure and transparency policies at the Exchange, thus providing investors dealing in such stocks foreknowledge of inherent weaknesses in such stocks.
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About X-Compliance report:
The X-Compliance Report is a transparency initiative of The Nigerian Stock Exchange (The Exchange), which is designed to maintain market integrity and protect investors by providing compliance-related information on all listed companies.
Companies that are listed on The Exchange are required to adhere to high disclosure standards which are prescribed in the Rulebook of The Exchange, 2015 (Issuers’ Rules), and other Rules of The Exchange, from time to time. Financial information which is periodic disclosure, as well as on-going material information disclosure should be released to The Exchange in a timely manner to enable it efficiently perform its function of maintaining an orderly market. The X-Compliance Report is updated every Friday at the close of market.
