The Nation Newspaper

Tag: Eterna

  • Eterna celebrates 30 years, lays out new strategic plan

    •Mulls new capital raising

    Eterna Plc yesterday marked its 30th year anniversary with an assurance of continued growth and expansion in the years ahead. Incorporated as a limited liability company in 1989, Eterna became a public limited liability company in 1997 and had its shares listed on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) in August 1998.

    Eterna, which has been listed for 21 years, was honoured yesterday with the ceremonial beating of the closing gong for the NSE, the highest honour at the stock market. The equities market continued on the upswing, with the market capitalisation rising by N254 billion to close at N12.106 trillion as against its opening value of N11.852 trillion.

    Speaking at the trading closing ceremony at the Exchange, Managing Director, Eterna Plc, Mr. Mahmud Tukur, said the company has grown over the past three decades through thick and thin and it is now in better position to create greater values for all stakeholders.

    He assured the investing public that the company would build on its impressive track records and deliver better values to shareholders.

    “We are focused on creating additional value for you, 2019 should be an excellent year,” Tukur assured.

    Chairman, Eterna Plc, Mr Lamis Shehu Dikko, commended the investing public for their trust in the company over the past three decades.

    He also assured that the company has been positioned to outperform its previous years and deliver better values to stakeholders.

    Doyen of Stockbrokers, Mr Sam Ndata, described Eterna as one of the good stocks at the stock market noting that the investing public has confidence in the company.

    He said the stockbrokers were happy with the performance of the company over the past 30 years, assuring it of continuing support of the stockbrokers.

    Ndata, the oldest trading stockbroker on the trading floor yesterday, urged the company to continue to provide the investing public with continuous insights into its operations by engaging with the stockbrokers.

    Other members of the board and management of Eterna at the ceremony yesterday included Ms. Kudi Badmus, Chief Finance Officer; Mrs. Afolake Lawal, Non Executive Director; Mr. Oluwole Abegunde, Non Executive Director and Mr Olutola Mobolurin.

    Earlier at a press briefing on the 3oth anniversary, Tukur outlined the company’s five-year strategic plan aimed at expanding the operations of the company and extend its reach within and outside Nigeria.

    According to him, the company plans to build a more diversified business with consolidation of its existing niche market of lubricant and expansion into other new businesses.

    He said the company plans to open some 200 petrol stations during the period of the five-year plan as it seeks to build a robust downstream business.

    He outlined that the company will leverage on franchising, leasing and acquisition while focusing on strategic locations that deliver value for money.

    Tukur said the company plans to raise new capital to support its business expansion, including its expansion into West African and ECOWAS sub region.

    He noted that the company has a stronger balance sheet to support new capital raising having settled its N14 billion debt and completed strategic business enhancement that places it in good stead to pursue new investment opportunities and expansion.

    “Eterna has not raise any fresh equity since 2009 and the market has not been fantastic for raising of equity, but between 2009 and 2018, we have been able to pay over N14 billion in debt and we have grown shareholders fund from N4 billion to N13 billion, All that have been done from internally generated working capital. We have generated profit, we have paid down our debt, and we have improved shareholders value, and now it is time for us to go back to the capital market to raise money to help us continue in our expansion because we are clean, we are debt free, our balance sheet is clean so let us take advantage of it and raise fresh capital to enable us meet our expansion objective, either debt or equity from our shareholders and that is what our current strategy is,” Tukur said.

    He said the company has stronger underlying value than as reflected in the current pricing at the stock market.

    He attributed the undervaluation of the company’s shares to information gap noting that people do not know what the company is all about, its internal restructuring, innovations, capacity building, its businesses and structure among others.

    “Everybody that looks into our share price knows that the company is undervalued relative to its performance, so it is a very good share, we have paid dividend in a very challenging environment,” Tukur said.

     

     

  • Eterna plans N10b debt capital raising

    Eterna Plc plans to raise N10 billion in a new debt capital raising exercise aimed at strengthening the balance sheet of the integrated energy company.

    In a regulatory filing signed by the managing director of Eterna, Mahmud Tukur, Eterna stated that it would be issuing a N10 billion 270-day Commercial Paper (CP) to raise new funds.

    The net proceeds of the issuance will be used for working capital and general corporate purposes. Eterna-an integrated energy company- manufactures, markets and distributes lubricants; supplies chemicals; trades in crude oil, Condensates & LPG, and distributes clean petroleum products.

    The company stated that it has been repositioning its operations to respond to the challenges in the energy sector while taking advantage of strategic opportunities to meet the needs of customers and increase returns to shareholders.

    The Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) had in July 2018 reclassified Eterna from low-priced stock to a medium-price, providing additional liquidity that will enhance price discovery for the energy company.

    As a medium-priced stock, stockbrokers could move the share price of Eterna with a minimum volume of 50,000 shares as against 100,000 minimum shares required for low-priced stocks.

    According to the Exchange, Eterna gained above the N5 mark on January 8, 2018 and traded above N5 up till close of business on June 29, 2018, which indicated that Eterna has traded above N5 in at least four out of the last six months and therefore would be reclassified from low-priced stock to mid-price stock with effect from July 16, 2018.

    The NSE had recently classified quoted companies into three categories-high-priced, medium-priced and low-priced stocks, based on their market price.

    The high-priced stocks consist of large-cap equities that are priced at N100 per share or above for at least four of the last six trading months, or new security listings that are priced at N100 or above at the time of listing on the Exchange.

    The medium-priced stocks  consist of medium-priced equities that are priced at N5 per share or above but less than N100 per share for at least four of the last six months, or new security listings that are priced at N5 per share or above but less than N100 per share at the time of listing on the Exchange.

    The low-priced stocks, where majority of listed companies fall, consist of equities that are priced at one kobo per share or above but below N5 per share for at least four of the last six months, or new security listings that are priced at one kobo per share or above but below N5 per share at the time of listing on the Exchange.

    Stocks under high-priced group shall have price change with minimum of 10,000 units; stocks under medium-priced group shall have price movement with a minimum of 50,000 units while stocks under low-priced group shall have price change with minimum volume of 100,000 units.

  • Eterna confident on future outlook

    The board of Eterna Plc has assured that the company is optimistic on its future outlook having employed innovative and trusted procedures to achieve business efficiency.

    Speaking at the annual general meeting in Lagos, Chairman, Eterna Plc, Lamis Dikko, said the company has established a proven strategic framework to sustain profitability in the years ahead.

    “We are confident that the future ahead of us is bright. This is because we have established tested processes and procedures across our activities. We have put adequate controls in place and we measure our performance constantly,” Dikko said.

    He added that the firm has engaged in major product update through new licenses, renewal of existing licenses and the relaunch of its newly packaged lubricants.

    He said the company has successfully acquired the sole licence to distribute and blend Castrol brand of Automotive and Industrial lubricants in Nigeria.

    “In addition to the distribution and blending licences, we have also renewed all existing licensces for Castrol’s offshore and marine products. Plans are also underway to relaunch our newly packaged lubricants. The relaunch will serve as proof to our customers that their feedback and satisfaction is of paramount importance to us,” Dikko said.

    He stressed that the firm gives special attention to building both external and internal relationships, adding that such relationships minimise inefficiencies and aggressively increases sales and market penetration.

    On the firm’s quality management system (QMS), Dikko outlined that the company’s QMS approach involves ensuring that all its products and services meet and exceeds customers’ expectations. In 2016, Eterna were recertified as a quality management compliant organisation under the NIA ISO 90001:2008.

    The chairman said the company places significant emphasis on optimising its assets and efficient management of available resources.

    “In the year under review, we have embarked on meaningful maintenance and asset upgrades. Today, our petroleum products storage in Ibafon, Apapa employs one of the most efficient product storage processes in the country in a safe environment whilst remaining in strict adherence to regulatory directives. We are employing state-of-the-art equipment at our petroleum products retail outlets and conducting general renovation, to ensure that our customers receive value for their money in a conducive and safe environment,” Dikko said.

    He said the board has given the management of the company a mandate to embark on an aggressive retail station expansion drive in order to contribute towards sustenance and improvement of shareholder asset value.

  • Wema Bank, Eterna, Aiico, 48 others risk N90m NSE’s fines

    The Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) has identified some 51 companies that are technically due for fines for failure to meet the deadlines for submission of their earnings reports, even after the extension of such deadlines.

    Up-to-date lists of companies in default of earnings filings obtained by The Nation indicated that some 30 per cent of quoted companies have failed to meet the final extended deadlines for the submission of their audited reports and accounts. This implies that more than two-thirds, 70 per cent, of quoted companies submitted their earnings reports within the extended window for earnings reports.

    It was showed that more companies might be sanctioned for failure to file their audited reports this year than the previous year. In its latest compliance status report, the NSE had reported that it slammed some N60.2 million as fines on 34 firms for failure to meet deadlines for 2011 audited reports. With a range of N3.8 million and N100, 000, average fine for the previous year was N1.77 million.

    The companies currently tagged for failure to submit their annual reports within extended deadlines included Wema Bank, the only banking stock with such tag; AIICO Insurance, Eterna, Union Homes Savings & Loans, Omatek Ventures, Vono Products, Resort Savings and Loans, DN Meyer and Beco Petroleum.

    There was also large concentration of defaulters in the troubled insurance subsector with not less than 25 insurance companies penciled down as defaulters. Besides AIICO, other defaulting insurance companies included African Alliance, Continental Reinsurance, Cornerstone Insurance, Custodian and Allied, Equity Assurance, Goldlink Insurance, Great Nigeria Insurance, Guinea Insurance, International Energy Insurance, Lasaco Assurance, Law Union and Rock Insurance, Linkage Assurance, Mutual Benefit Assurance, NEM Insurance, Niger Insurance, Oasis Insurance, Prestige Assurance, Regency Alliance Insurance, Sovereign Trust Insurance, STACO, Standard Alliance, Unic Insurance, Unity Kapital Assurance, Universal Insurance Company and Investment and Allied Assurance.

    Other defaulters included Nigeria Energy Sector Fund (NESF), Nigerian-German Chemical, Rak Unity Petroleum, PS Mandrides & Co, FTN Cocoa Processors, Big Treat, UTC Nigeria, Fortis Microfinance Bank, Conoil, Royal Exchange Nigeria, Starcomms, MTI, IPWA, Nigerian Wire & Cable, Capital Hotel, Ikeja Hotel, Daar Communications and MTECH Communications.

    The NSE usually sanctioned earnings report defaulters in line with the provisions of Section 14 of Appendix 111 of the Listing Rules of NSE. Most of the firms tagged were also fined in the previous year.

    The lists also indicated that nearly three-quarters of quoted companies failed to meet the deadlines for their first quarter earnings reports for the year. However, NSE had not applied sanctions on defaulters for interim reports, although it maintains a deficiency tag on each stock that defaults to alert investors on the corporate governance and compliance status of the company.

    Post-listing rules at the NSE require that quoted companies should submit their reports, not later than three months after the expiration of the period.

    Most quoted companies including all banks, major manufacturers, oil and gas companies, breweries and cement companies use the 12-month Gregorian calendar year as their business year. The business year thus terminates on December 31.

    NSE’s regulatory filing calendar indicates that the deadline for submission of annual report for companies with Gregorian calendar business year is March 31. However, the NSE provides that where a filing due date falls on a weekend or holiday, the filing will fall due on the next business day. March 31 fell on Sunday while April 1 was a public holiday in commemoration of Easter Monday, thus the due date for the deadline was Tuesday, April 2, 2013.

    However, the NSE had extended the regular deadline for all quoted companies by 30 days as a general concession in recognition of challenges being faced by companies, especially with regards to adoption of the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS).

    The extension had came a day after The Nation exclusively reported that banks’ results might fell below earnings report due date of April 2, due to issues around IFRS and Central Bank of Nigeria’s (CBN’s) approval.

    According to the NSE, the extension was an intervention to ensure listed companies present their audited and interim reports accurately as well as provide assurance to businesses and advisors affected by the early adoption of IFRS and levels of regulatory approvals which now includes Financial Reporting Council (FRC).

    The NSE had indicated that it would not apply the tag of Below Listings Standard (BLS) on the names of the companies nor impose fines on them during the extended period.

    “While we believe that the timely disclosure of financial information is critical to stakeholders in the capital market as well as investors, the challenges which the entities are facing are germane. It is in view of the extenuating circumstances that the Exchange is granting all listed companies an extended filing date of 30 days from the due date of the required periodic financial submissions,” General Manager, Legal and Regulation Division, Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE), Ms. Tinu Awe, had said.

    NSE tags and applies fines on companies that fail to meet earnings reports’ deadline. Under the corporate governance and rules compliance assessment report known as X-Compliance Report, NSE identified four different kinds of tags or symbols to alert investors about the status of each quoted company. These included below listings standard (BLS), the first degree alert level indicating a company that has not complied with post listing rules such as late submission of financial statements, unauthorised publication, management failures among others.

    Also, financial services companies such as bank and insurance companies awaiting regulatory approval will carry the appropriate symbol of awaiting regulatory approval (ARA). Companies that are undergoing a capital reconstruction exercise including supplementary issue, share buyback, split, share reconstruction among others will be tagged with capital reconstruction exercise (CRE) while companies that have indicated that they will be delisting or companies that are being delisted at the instance of the regulator would be flagged with delisting in process (DIP) symbol.