Airtel cancels deferred shares, FBNH approved N17.9bn final dividend

Airtel Africa has confirmed the annulment and extinction of all its deferred shares of $0.50 nominal value each. This “Capital Reduction” was endorsed by shareholders in the Company’s annual meeting on July 4th, 2023, and has now been approved by the High Court of England and Wales. Hence, the issued share capital of the Company will be 3,758,151,504 ordinary shares of $0.50 nominal value each, carrying one vote apiece. In other development, FBNH group has approved the payment of ₦17,947,646,398 as the final dividend for FY:2022 subject to withholding tax. The dividend is payable on August 16th, 2023, to shareholders whose name appears in the register of members at the close of business on August 8th, 2023. Meanwhile Bearish sentiments drove the domestic equities today as the NGX All-Share Index closed 0.47% lower to 64,625.28 points, marking its third successive session decline. Selloffs in Telco heavyweight, AIRTELAFRI (-5.30%), alongside GTCO (-0.53%) and ACCESSCORP (-0.59%) underpinned the market’s weak performance. As a result, the year-to-date (YTD) return fell to 26.10%, while the market capitalization gained ₦13.28bn to close at ₦35.37trn.

Analysis of today’s market activities showed trade turnover settled higher relative to the previous session, with the value of transactions up by 59.99%. A total of 291.71m shares valued at ₦7.43bn were exchanged in 6,213 deals. GTCO (-0.53%) led the volume chart with 41.75m units traded while AIRTELAFRI (-5.30%) led the value chart in deals worth ₦1.82bn.

Market breadth closed negative at 1.39-to-1 ratio with declining issues outnumbering advancing ones. NEM (-10.00%) topped seventeen (17) others on the laggard’s table while ETERNA (+10.00%) led twelve (12) others on the leader’s log.

Find below key highlights of market activities

Dividend Information for 2023