
About 26 per cent of companies listed on the main board of the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) are trading at par value (N0.50), investigation by Business247 News Online has revealed.
According to data gathered by our correspondent, 46 out of total 171 quoted companies on the equities market of The Exchange in July remained flat at N0.50 per share.
Insurance companies dominated the list with 21 companies trading at par value. As these insurance companies are stagnant at nominal value, the NSE Insurance Index closed in July with a year-to-date -6.96 per cent.
Given their historic pricing trends in January 2008, the extent of the recession in the insurance sector looms larger than the nation’s economic crises.
In the early 2008, nearly all insurance stocks were trading in three digits, in multiples of their nominal values and considerably in competitive prices with other related stocks.
According to investigation, Prestige Assurance and Wapic Insurance-two sectoral leaders by share prices, opened February 2008 with four-digit values at N11.40 and N10.60 respectively.
African Alliance Insurance Company Plc, Cornerstone Insurance Plc, Equity Assurance Plc, Great Nigeria Insurance Plc, Guinea Insurance Plc, and Consolidated Hallmark Insurance Plc closed July at N0.50.
Others are International Energy Insurance Company Plc, Lasaco Assurance Plc, Linkage Assurance Plc, Mutual Benefit Assurance Plc, Niger Insurance Co. Plc. and Prestige Assurance Plc. Others are, Regency Alliance Insurance Company Plc, Royal Exchange Assurance Plc, Sovereign Trust Insurance Plc, Standard Trust Assurance Plc, Standard Alliance Insurance Plc, Unic Insurance Plc, Unity Kapital Assurance Plc, Universal Insurance Company Plc and West African Provincial Insurance Plc.
Apart from insurance stocks which dominated this category, there are also Associated Bus Company Plc, Afromedia Plc, Aso Savings & Loans Plc, Chams Plc, Beco Petroleum Product Plc, C & I Leasing Plc, Costain (West Africa) Plc, Courtville Investments Plc, Daar Communications Plc and Deap Capital Management & Trust Plc in this category.
Others are Dunlop (Nigeria) Plc, Evans Medical Plc, First Aluminium Nigeria Plc, FTN Cocoa Processors Plc, Japaul Oil & Marine Services Plc. Mass Telecom Innovation Nigeria Plc, Multi-Trex Integrated Foods Plc, Multiverse Resources Plc, National Sports Lottery Plc, Omatek Ventures Plc, Resort Savings And Loans Plc, R. T. Bricoe (Nig.) Plc, Tantalizer Plc, Union Diagnostic & Clinical Services Plc, and UTC Nigeria Plc.
As the share prices of these companies remained stagnant, the Council of the Nigerian Stock Exchange have been looking at the way of bring down the par value of stocks quoted on the Exchange from N0.50 to N0.01. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is said to have approved the N0.01 new par value rule submitted by the National Council of the NSE.
The exchange, in a statement issued to market stakeholders, said that “notwithstanding its par value, the price of every share listed on the stock exchange shall be determined by the market, save that no share shall trade below one kobo per unit.”
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