This is going to be a very sarcastic piece, I simply could not be helped.
There is something almost poetic about a publicly listed company taking out a formal announcement, complete with letterhead, a signed signature, and the full weight of Exchange disclosure rules to essentially ask: “Has anyone seen our majority shareholder?” (Awa shareholder don loss oh!!)
Aims Limited holds 40% of Union Dicon Salt Plc. Not a rounding error. Not a passive, forgot-I-owned-this, tucked-it-in-a-drawer kind of stake.
This is the single largest block of shares in the company. The majority shareholder and Union Dicon, with all its corporate machinery, its Company Secretary, its board of directors cannot find them.
It begs the question, When last did they have a board meeting? Is the majority shareholder not represented on the board? What about AGM? Is the company a going concern? I am honestly gumsmacked.
One is left to wonder what was tried. A phone call? An email? Perhaps a letter delivered by hand to a registered address? Maybe a carrier pigeon? A town crier in the village square?
The regulatory minimum must mean more
A listed company cannot communicate with its majority shareholder not for “a period of time,” by their own admission and we simply allow the company to disclose this fact as though it were a routine corporate update, right alongside dividend notices and audited financials?
The exchange’s rulebook, specifically Rule 17.5 under which this announcement was made, appears to be functioning less as a governance guardrail and more as a confessional booth. Bless me, for I have sinned. I have lost my largest shareholder. I am telling you about it now.
The listing rules, as they stand, seem to demand that companies meet a minimum threshold of disclosure and governance. And technically, technically, Union Dicon appears to be meeting it. They filed. They disclosed. The box is ticked. The rulebook is satisfied.
The Rally That Makes No Sense (And Therefore Makes Perfect Sense)
Here is where things get truly interesting, and by interesting, we mean troubling in a way that should keep regulators awake at night.
Union Dicon Salt Plc’s stock has rallied. Aggressively.
On what fundamentals, precisely? The salt? The company that cannot find its own majority shareholder? The board whose most recent public communication is essentially a missing person notice?
This is the anatomy of a meme stock in the Nigerian context: thin information, thinner governance, and a retail investor base that has learned, perhaps correctly, in the short term, that fundamentals are optional and momentum is everything.
The disconnect between price and underlying corporate reality is not a glitch. It is the feature of a market that has not yet decided whether it wants to be taken seriously.
Listing is not a trophy, it is a contract
There is a broader principle worth stating plainly: a stock exchange listing is not an achievement to be framed and hung on the wall. It is an ongoing contract with the investing public.
That contract includes some basic, non-negotiable obligations among them the expectation that a company can, at minimum, speak to its own shareholders.
That it maintains functional corporate communication. That investor relations is not a department that exists only when things are going well, but a standing commitment to the market that has trusted you with its capital.
The current minimum listing requirements may be technically sufficient for compliance. They are clearly insufficient for confidence.
Perhaps it is time for NGX to revisit what “minimum” means, not merely in terms of disclosure checklists, but in terms of demonstrated corporate capacity. Investor relations engagement should not be optional for listed companies. There should be measurable standards: response times, communication frequency, documented outreach to shareholders, evidence that the board actually knows who owns the company.
Because right now, the market has listed entities who meet the letter of the rules while making a mockery of their spirit. And the spirit of a stock exchange, the entire reason the thing exists, is to be a place where capital meets credibility.
I have nothing to say – we need to be more!!!
