By Nkiruka Nnorom

The shares of Nigerian Breweries Plc and Forte Oil recorded heavy transactions in the month of November to emerge the leading stocks in terms of price appreciation in the stock exchange.

Specifically, Nigerian Breweries, that just secured all the necessary approvals from the Securities and Exchange Commission, SEC, the Nigerian Stock Exchange, NSE, and shareholders to merge its operation with Consolidated Breweries, CB, led the gainers list with N10.12 price increase to close the month at N172.12 from N 162.00 in the previous month.

Both companies – NB and CB – are subsidiaries of Heineken NV in which the later holds equity stakes of 54.1 percent and 53.85 percent, respectively.

“The essential proposal before our shareholders is to combine the operations of Nigerian Breweries Plc and Consolidated Breweries Plc into one legal entity effected through a Scheme of Merger with NB being the surviving entity,” said Mr. Nico Vervelde, Managing Director/CEO, NB in a statement.

Under the terms of the Scheme of Merger, it is proposed that each Consolidated Breweries shareholder will receive four NB shares for every five shares held in CB or elect for a cash alternative.

According to the Nigerian Breweries, the proposed merger is expected to deliver increased value to its shareholders, employees, customers, distributors, suppliers of the combined businesses, and the Nigerian economy as a whole.

Forte Oil Plc trailed behind with N10.05 gains, closing at N222.00 from N211.95 per share. Forte Oil had in the last one year won some accolades, enjoying recognition from the NSE for early submission of its 2013 full year financials well ahead of the stipulated date.

This was followed by its inclusion in the Morgan Stanley Capital International (MSCI) Frontier Market Index, one of the world’s leading equity index providers.

Then the recent addition to NSE high priced stocks, which indicates that a certain security has traded an average of N100 or more per share in four out of the last six months period the Exchange opened for business. To cap it all, the company also emerged winner of ‘the overall highest award’ at the 2014 edition of the PEARL awards.

PZ Cusson came far behind with N4.66 to close at N28.50 from N23.84 at the beginning of the month, followed by Stanbic IBTC Holdings with N1.40 increase. It opened the month at N29.60 and closed at N31.00 per share. Beta Glass was the next with N1.05 gains, closing at N22.05 from N21.00.

Others were UPDC REIT which added N1.00 to its share price to close at N10.00 from N9.00 per unit; Ikeja Hotels (N0.93); Cadbury Plc (N0.72); Berger Paints Nig. Plc (N0.70) and Union Bank of Nigeria that added N0.63 to close at N8.43 from N8.00 per share.