By NKIRUKA NNOROM

On the top 10 performing stocks last week were shares of etransact International Plc, Omoluabi savings and Loans Plc, Wapic Insurance Plc, Beta Glass Plc Honeywell Flourmills Plc and Mansard Insurance Plc.

File photo: The floor of Stock exchange

The rest were Fidson Healthcare Plc, Custodian and Allied Plc, Cement Company of Northern Nigeria (CCNN) and Smart Products Nigeria Plc.

etransact, an online real time payment company, for the second week running led transaction on the Nigerian Stock Exchange, NSE, with the share price rising by 15.29 percent or N0.39 to close at N2.99 from N2.55.

It had risen by15.38 percent or N0.34 the previous week to emerge investors toast within that week. The company has been at the forefront of facilitating e-payment option in Nigeria, in a bid to drive the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, cashless policy. Recently, it announced the investment of about N58.8 million ($350,000) into a mobile money activation project in collaboration with EFInA, a financial sector development organization.

The project is being piloted in Northern and South Western Nigeria and is called “The PocketMoni 500” project. eTranzact International Plc, which facilitates mobile banking services of 11 banks through its mobile switching platform, processes over N1 trillion every year and has more than 11 years’ experience processing financial transactions in Africa, got a Central Bank Mobile Money license for PocketMoni, its mobile money wallet in 2012.

According to Mr. Valentine Obi, the company’s CEO, the collaboration with EFInA is the first of a series of strategic partnerships the company planned, and it will be launching other similar projects in other parts of Nigeria. In recognition of this, the company’s PocketMoni, bagged two awards at the AfricaCom and Lead Africa Awards 2014 in the Best Mobile Money Service category.

The various investments have been feeding positively into the finances as its revenue grew to N4.71 billion for the year ended December 31, 2013, from N3.06 billion posted a year earlier. Also, its profit after tax rose to N192.7 million as against N127.8 million in 2012. This represented 10 percent and 50.7 percent growth in revenue and post tax profit respectively. Of the two companies listed on Processing System of the NSE, etransact is the most favoured by investors in terms of pricing and it has delivered 33 percent return in 52 weeks.

Omoluabi Savings and Loans followed with 14.29 per cent or N0.10 price appreciation to close at N0.80 from N0.70. Of the 11 companies presently quoted on the Alternative Securities Market, ASeM, segment of the NSE, Omoluabi Savings has been the one enjoying more patronage than the rest.

The ASeM is a window created by the NSE to give mid-sized and other upstart companies opportunity to access the market. Though patronage for shares of companies in this segment has been quite minimal, Omuluabi Saving has been quite active since its listing last month. The company had listed five billion ordinary shares at 55 kobo, amounting to N2.75 billion.

The shareholding structure of the bank showed that Mortgage Capital owns 39 percent, local government areas 21.80 percent, Unicorn 21 percent, Osun State government 18.18 percent while others are 0.01 percent. The company’s total asset stood at N3.08 billion with deposit accounting for N3.4 billion at the point of listing. Its profit after-tax stood at N41.8 billion. Already, it has delivered 60 percent return to investors.

Wapic Insurance shares rose by 10.53 percent or N0.06 to close at N0.63 from N0.57 per share. Three days ago, A.M. Best Rating assigned the financial strength rating of B- (Fair) and the issuer credit rating of “bb-” to Wapic.

The outlook assigned to both ratings is stable. According to A.M. Best, the ratings of Wapic reflect its developing business profile in the Nigerian market, tempered (near-term) earnings prospects due to its high expense base and solid risk-adjusted capitalization. The company grew its total assets by 76 per cent to N22.30 billion in 2013 from N12.68 billion in 2012. Its shareholders’ funds increased significantly, rising from N7.62 billion in 2012 to N14.18 billion in 2013.

The figures showed that Wapic maintains the second highest solvency ratio in the insurance industry standing at 473 percent as at 31 December 2012.

Beta Glass went up by 10.25 percent or N2.46 to close at N26.46 from N24.00; Honeywell advanced by 9.03 percent or N0.28 to close at N3.38 from N3.10; Mansard appreciated by 8.62 percent or N0.25 to close at N3.15 from N2.90; Fidson added 8.41 per cent or N0.26 to close at N3.35 from N3.09; Custodian and Allied garnered 5.23 percent or N0.18 to close at N3.62 from N3.44; CCNN recorded 4.75 percent or N044 price appreciation to close at N9.71 from N9.27, while Smart Products advanced by 4.72 percent or N0.05 to close at N1.11 from N1.06 per share.