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Shareholders of Africa Prudential Plc, recently, approved the payment of 50 kobo per share as dividend for the 2020 financial year, culminating in a gross dividend value of N1 billion.
The shareholders while commending the company at the Annual General Meeting (AGM) which held in Lagos via proxy and streamed live on the company’s website and social media handles, renewed calls for less cumbersome procedures to get their dividend,
Speaking during the event, the Founder, Independent Shareholders Association of Nigeria (ISAN), Sir Sunny Nwosu, noted that the procedures shareholders go in order to get their dividends is cumbersome while adding that the recent decision taken to draw back unclaimed dividends to 6 months was not in the best interest for investors who are yet to claim their dividends.
“We were very pleased with the position of CAMA 1990 and CAMA 2020 which says that after 12 years, the unclaimed dividend would revert back to the company that pays it. At this stage, we cannot trust the government whether they call it a Trust fund or anything. At the end of proceedings in which deliberations were made, they had to draw back the 12 years in the CAMA and now install 6 years.
There is also a trending position of the SEC today which is saying that untraceable money should be returned back to the Trust fund after 24months. I sympathise with our company, being a registrar company as the license is so important that you cannot argue with them but we are the people suffering and that is why we are fighting this cause because our dividend is very important”, he said.
Sir Nwosu further commended the company for holding expenses very tight while adding that the company can do more by increasing the dividend for the next financial year.
In response, the Managing Director, Africa Prudential Plc, Obong Idiong, said, the overarching interest of the Registrar Business, has been to continuously deploy new, innovative ways to transform investors’ experience in the capital market.
According to him, the company achieved 93 per cent total dividend pay-out for its clients in 2020 compared to 89 per cent in 2019 as the company continues to ease the dividend enrolment process for investors.
He said, “We will continue to adopt innovative technology and deploy more transformative service offerings which will improve investors and other stakeholders in the capital market. We are engaging with the NIBSS, SEC and NSE to see how best we can pay shareholders their monies.”
