Investors in Forte Oil, Seplat, Nestle, Total suffer N55bn loss

As the equities market continued on a free fall, investors in Forte Oil Plc, Seplat Petroleum Development Company Ltd and Total Nigeria Plc and Nestle Nigeria Plc suffered a loss of N55.2 billion in one week.

The decline of Forte Oil, one of the highly capitalised stock on the Nigerian Stock Exchange impacted negatively on the equities market that fell by N218 billion in one week of market transaction that ended today, Friday, November 18, 2016.

The market capitalisation of The Exchange had opened the week at N9.009 trillion to close on Friday at N8.791 trillion.

According to Business247 News Online investigation, investors in Forte Oil lost an estimated N28 billion when it share price opened for trading this week at N104.50 to close on Friday at N82.67.

Investors in Seplat Petroleum Development Company also suffered a share price decline of N18.05 per share from N360 to N342.95, translating into N10.17 billion valued lost by investors of the financial institution.

Further investigation revealed that investors in Nestle Nigeria Plc and Total Nigeria Plc both lost N11.9 billion and N4.7 billion respectively.

Nestle Nigeria had opened the week at N814.97 to close at N800 while Total Nigeria share price slumped by N13.97 to N276.03 from N290 it opened on Monday.

Analysts said that equities market reacted to Monday’s National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) latest report on inflation.

NBS had said Inflation rate increased to 18.3 per cent in October from 17.9 per cent a month earlier, 11-year high and ninth month increase in inflation rate in a row.

The NBS said the increases were recorded across almost all major divisions which contributed to the Headline Index. Communication and Restaurants and Hotels recorded the slowest pace of growth in October, growing at 5.7 per cent and 9.4 per cent year-on-year respectively.

“Going into the new week, we reiterate our call for caution on equities’ market play in the near term as the key market parameters would likely remain volatile given the weak macro environment,” a group of analysts at Investment One said.