Ignite Investments & Commodities to acquire Ardova at N17.38 per share as Equities Market retreats

Nigeria Exchange Limited has said that Ardova PLC notified it that Ignite Investments & Commodities Limited has approached the Board of Directors of the Company with an intention to acquire the shares held by other shareholders of the Company at an offer price of ₦17.38 per share, and subsequently delist the Company from NGX. The offer price of ₦17.38 represents a premium of 22.44% and 24.38% to the 30-day and 60-day volume weighted average share price of ₦14.19 and ₦13.97. Ardova Shareholders and members of the public are advised to exercise caution in dealing in Ardova’s shares until further information is provided.

The Exchange also said that Neimeth Pharmaceuticals Plc (“Neimeth” or the “Company”) informed the NGX and the investing public that following the closing of its Right issue exercise that it had received a No-Objection from the Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) on the allotment of 2,373,947,500 ordinary shares at ₦1.55 per share on the basis of 5 new ordinary shares for every 4 ordinary shares held as at the close of business on Friday, April 2022. The Right Issue exercise led to the fresh injection of ₦3.68 billion which would further position the company for growth and help improve its capital structure.

Meanwhile the Stock market closed on a bearish note today as the NGX-ASI dipped 0.1% to 54,299.76 points, dragged by losses in DANGCEM (-0.7%), GEREGU (-5.1%), and FCMB (-7.8%). Accordingly, YTD return moderated to 5.9% (previously: 6.1%) while market capitalisation shed ₦33.5bn to ₦29.6tn. Meanwhile, activity level improved as volume and value traded rose 4.4% and 58.8% respectively to 200.0m units and ₦7.6bn. Across sectors within our purview, performance was mixed albeit negatively tilted as 3 indices lost, 2 gained while the Consumer Goods index closed flat. Losses in AIICO (-3.2%), LINKASSURE (-6.1%), FIDELITY (-2.0%), and ZENITH (-0.4%) dragged the Insurance and Banking indices lower by 0.8% and 0.6% respectively. Similarly, the Industrial Goods index lost 0.3% owing to price depreciation in DANGCEM (-0.7%) and CAP (-0.5%). On the other hand, the Oil & Gas and AFR-ICT indices advanced 0.5% and 0.4% sequentially following buying interest in CONOIL (+10.0%), MRSOIL (+9.8%), and MTNN (+0.8%). Investor sentiment, as measured by market breadth, weakened to -0.09x (from 0.00x) as 20 stocks advanced, 26 declined while 67 closed flat. We expect bargain-hunting activities to boost market performance in the next trading session.

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Dividend Information for 2023