The Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) has extended the time for quoted companies to submit their audited financial statements for the year ended December 31, 2019.
This was contained in a circular, which was addressed to Dealing Member Firms (DMFs) on March 24, and signed by the Head, Broker Dealer Regulation of the Nigerian Stock Exchange.
According to the NSE, the decisions outlined in the circular, are part of measures taken by The Exchange to reduce the business and economic impacts on the activities of the Dealing Member Firms.
What it means: This decision means that the NSE has approved a temporary suspension of the provisions of Rule 7.4 (Submission of Financial and Non-Financial Reports to the Exchange) of the Rulebook of the Exchange, 2015 as amended.
The Rule states that, ‘Every Dealing Member shall submit to the Exchange its audited financial statements, within ninety (90) calendar days of the end of the fiscal, and its quarterly returns within thirty (30) calendar days of the end of the quarter; and any other periodic report within the period stipulated by the Exchange’.
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As part of its statement in the circular, the NSE appreciates the fact that some of the internal governance, auditing and other processes including the engagement of external auditors to carry out the audit of Dealing Member Firms, may have been negatively affected by the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic.
As a result, The Exchange has decided to grant all DMFs an additional sixty (60) day grace period for the submission of their audited financial statement for the year ended December 31, 2019 which was supposed to be due for submission on Monday, March 30, 2020.
This means that the deadline date for submission of the audited financial statement for all the DMFs has now been extended to Friday, May 29, 2020.
It should be noted that, the COVD-19 outbreak has started affecting the capital market obligations of some of these quoted companies. Just yesterday UBA and Transcorp, announced the postponing of their Annual General Meeting (AGM).
I wish to commend some / Registrars broken houses that felt the need to extend SMS to stake holders/shareholders on the reasons of agm postponements as well as giving development especially Afrifund , Cardinal Stone , GDR .
Thanks .