By NKIRUKA NNOROM

Among the top ten performing stocks last week were Courteville Business Solution, Champion Breweries Plc, Stanbic IBTC Holding Plc, UBA Capital Plc and Fidson Healthcare plc.

The rest are Livestock Feeds plc, Multi-Trex Integrated Foods Plc, Academy Press Plc, Cutix Plc and Wema Bank Plc.

Courteville Business Solution, listed on the computer based-system sub-sector of the Nigerian Stock Exchange, NSE, led the pack after advancing by 21.21 percent or N0.14 to close the market at N0.80 from N0.66 it started with. The stock started trudging up few weeks ago after a spirited argument by the company’s Managing Director, Bola Akindele, that it was priced below its fair value. From 50kobo, it picked up and had risen to N0.96 before sliding again, probably due to profiteering by investors.

CBS was also among 13 companies recently commended by the NSE for compliance to good corporate governance by filing its 2011 year end result well ahead of stipulated submission date. In a bid to enhance shareholders value and stay ahead of competition, CBS, recently disclosed plans to extend its operations to more African countries.

Available financial statement of the company for the first quarter ended 31st March, 2013, showed that its turnover rose by 33.78 percent from N233.97million in the first quarter of 2012 to N313.01million. Shareholders’ fund rose marginally by 3.08 percent from N2.82billion in the first quarter of 2012 to N2.90billion in the corresponding period of 2013, while retained profit grew by 63.21 percent to N86.84million in 2013, from N53.21million in 2012.

A brewery company, Champion Breweries Plc, followed with price gain of 21 percent or N2.31 from N11.00 to N13.31. It emerged the top fourth gainer penultimate week with gain of 28.81 percent or N2.46. Analysts believe that the proposed hybrid offer of debt-to-equity conversion and injection of fresh capital via rights issue have been the reason behind the galloping in the share price.

Two years ago, Heineken, the parent company of Nigerian Breweries Plc, bought controlling interest in Champion Breweries. Before the acquisition, Champion Breweries was struggling with problem of inadequate working capital, low productivity, poor market share and low employee morale. It recorded a loss after tax of N1.3 billion in 2012, while the turnover stood at N1.8 billion.

Stanbic IBTC Holding was the next with 17.75 percent or N2.64 gains. It started the week at N16.00 and closed at N18.84 per share. In keeping with the Central Bank of Nigeria’s directive that required banks to either divest from their non-core banking businesses or adopt a HoldCo structure, Stanbic IBTC last year officially adopted a Holdco structure and was admitted at N13.03 per share on the NSE.

Last week, the bank announced an interim dividend of 70kobo and half year pre-tax profit of N13.1 billion from N6.1 billion in 2012. Also, the after tax profit ballooned by 105 percent to N10.2 billion as against N5 billion in 2012. Year-to-date, the share price has risen by 77.07 percent from N10.64 to the present market price. It had risen to N20.72 before relapsing due to profit taking.

UBA Capital’s share price rose by 16.36 percent or N0.18 to close at N1.28 from N1.10. Last year, a total of four billion shares of UBA Capital Plc, amounting to N4.64 billion were listed at N1.16 on the NSE. This is an indication that the stock price has not risen much from the listing price. The half year financial result for June, 2013 showed that gross earning rose to N263.235 million from N172.879 million in 2012, while after tax profit went up to N39.76 million from N26.08 million in the corresponding period of 2012.

Fidson Healthcare’s share price advanced by 11.82 percent or N0.24 from N2.03 to N2.27 per share, Livestock Feeds gained 11.13 percent or N0.52 to close at N5.19 from N4.67. Multi-Trex rose by 10 percent from N0.50 to N0.55; Academy Press followed with 9.88 percent gain to close at N1.78, while Cutix Plc and Wema Bank added 9.84 percent and 9.35 percent to their share prices to close at N2.01 and N1.17 per share respectively.