Sovereign Trust Insurance announces 72.50% rights issue subscription

Sovereign Trust Insurance Plc, has announced that its rights issue to its existing shareholders recorded a 72.50 per cent subscription.

Following the successful completion of the rights issue offer, the Securities and Exchange Commission, (SEC) has given approval to the underwriting firm to make public to the company’s shareholders and other related parties the result of the offer which ended on August 21, 2019, after it was extended at the expiration of its initial closing date of July 31, 2019.

It will be recalled that a total of 4,170,411,648 ordinary shares of 50 kobo each at 50 kobo per share on the basis of (1) new ordinary share for every (2) ordinary shares of 50 kobo each held in the Company as at the close of register on January 15, 2019 was placed on offer to the Company’s shareholders.

At the close of the offer period, a total of 110 (one hundred and ten) acceptance forms for 3,053,642,718 ordinary shares of the rights issue were received out of which, 108, (one hundred and eight) forms were found to be valid and accepted while two application forms were rejected as the buyers did not qualify for the shares as at the qualification date.

In all, the rights issue offer was 72.5 per cent subscribed which has been considered quite commendable by industry watchers considering the bearish nature of insurance stocks in the market in recent times.

A breakdown of the basis of allotment shows that 99 shareholders fully accepted their rights totaling 1,262,022,678 ordinary shares, nine shareholders with provisional allotment of 25,573,204 ordinary shares partially accepted their rights totaling 6,430,000 ordinary shares while renouncing a total of 19,143,204 ordinary shares. No applications were traded on the floor of The Nigerian Stock Exchange during the period of the offer.

Spokesperson for Sovereign Trust, Mr. Segun Bankole, stated that a total of 2,882,815,766 ordinary shares were fully renounced, while a total of 19,143,204 ordinary shares were partially renounced, bringing a total number of renounced ordinary shares to 2,901,958,970. Out of the 99 shareholders that accepted their rights in full, 57 shareholders applied for additional 1,755,190,040 ordinary shares and were allotted in full.