NIGERIA – The Board of Directors of Eterna Plc, an oil and gas downstream operators, has approved plans by some of its major shareholders to divest or sell their equity holdings in the firm to a new investor.
This is according to a notification, signed by the company’s Secretary, Bunmi Agagu, and sent to the Nigerian Stock Exchange.
As at the time of reporting this, Nairametrics gathered that the company (Eternal Plc) is yet to have full details of the transactions, hence the reason for the anonymous status of the prospective new investor.
Nairametrics understands that the proposed new investor intends to undertake due diligence exercise on the company, as part of the process for the prospective sale/divestment. In lieu of this, the Board has reviewed and approved the request at its meeting.
The notification to the Exchange became imperative as part of the statutory guidelines required to effect the transaction.
Nairametrics gathered that Eterna Plc as at its last reported FY 2019 audited statements, have about 26,465 shareholders who hold about 1.3 billion.
The firm has over 8 institutional investors, out of which only 4 hold more than 5% of the firm’s issued share capital.
The four institutional investors who hold more than 5% of the issued share capital of Eterna Plc are; Lenux Integrated Resources Limited, Global Energy Engineering and Raw materials Limited, Radix Trustees Limited and Meristem Stockbrokers Limited.
Recently, Eterna Plc announced it is targeting to achieve N21.05 billion (US$55.39m) turnover for the first quarter of 2021.
In its Q1 earning forecast obtained from the Nigerian Stock Exchange, the oil firm also projected to rake in N156.40 million (US$0.41m) profit before tax and N106.36 million (US$0.28m) profit after tax during the stipulated period. Its projection for cost of sales stood at N19.52 billion.
Eterna began the 2020 financial year on a sustainable loss position.
According to reports, Eterna’s Chairman, Shehu Dikko, recently announced to shareholders that the company was on course for a five-year strategic plan designed to take it to a higher level of success.
“As part of executing the plan, we acquired 14 additional retail outlets in 2018. We are consistently measuring our performance against set targets and the board is providing the oversight to ensure that management delivers on the plans,” Dikko told shareholders at the last annual general meeting in Lagos
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