Shareholders under the aegis of Renaissance Shareholders Association have petitioned the Securities and Exchange Commission, SEC, over planned share cancellation and delisting of IHS Nigeria Plc from the Nigerian Stock Exchange, NSE, calling on the commission to halt the process until some outstanding issues are settled.

They, therefore, demanded for publication and issue of the company’s IFRS audited financial statement for the year ended 30th April, 2013 and convention of a meeting of the shareholders to consider the accounts and the concurrent months’ activities before delisting.

Besides, they proposed payment of N20.00 per share to ordinary shareholders as exit price, saying that the proposed N3.70 is not adequate.
Vanguard notes that IHS Nig. Plc is seeking to cancel some of its shares at N3.70 per share and thereafter delist from the NSE’s Daily Official List, citing the cumbersomeness of raising fresh capital from the Nigerian capital market as a reason.

According to the Scheme of Arrangement, the Board of IHS stated that its operation requires frequent injection of fund to keep pace with competition and developing trends in the industry, a relief, they said, the NSE no longer provides.

In a petition to the Director-General of the SEC, titled ‘IHS Nig. Plc Cancellation of Shares and Delistment from NSE: Call for Accountability,’ signed by the association’s president, Ambassador Olufemi Timothy, the shareholders observed that publication of the 2013 audited financial account would show accountability, transparency, honesty, trust and overall confidence in the whole arrangement, while calling on SEC to “kindly ensure that all audited accounts as at 31st December, 2013 or as at when due is published and approved at the statutory general meeting of the company. It is essential in the interest of investors’ confidence in the capital market.”

In a separate letter addressed to the Chairman, Board of Director of IHS, the association posited that the company has no justification to say that the NSE is no longer relevant to it considering some remarkable achievements it has recorded within five years of its listing.

Part of the letter reads: “What compensation do you think will be enough for shareholders for the achievements recorded within five years of being on the Exchange? N3.70 proposed for cancellation of our shares is not adequate, unfair and unreasonably low based on the contribution of ordinary share capital holders since 2009 to date. IHS Nig. Plc came to be listed with fixed assets of only N405 million in 2009, but now delisting with fixed assets of over N28 billion in 2013 and total assets less current liabilities of N43 billion in 2012. What a great value!

“We observe that without paying a fair, reasonable and commensurate price for our shares to be cancelled in the scheme, you (the Board of IHS Nig. Plc) have cheated Nigerian shareholders, the Nigerian Stock Exchange and the government of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.”