- Sterling Financial Holdings pleads, promises to publish 2024 AFS before April 30, 2025
The Nigerian equities market operated by Nigerian Exchange Group kicked off the week on a bearish note due to huge losses in the share prices of TRANSCORP which declined by 3.1 percent and FBNH, down by 4.1 percent.
Selloffs in other blue-chip stocks such as NNFM, UCAP, ETERNA, UACN, ACCESSCORP, OANDO, ZENITH, UBA, NB, DANGSUGAR, LAFARGE, BERGER and GTCO whose share prices declined by 9.99 percent, 3.10 percent, 2.96 percent, 2.70 percent 2.64 percent, 2.37 percent, 2.02 percent, 1.03 percent, 0.97 percent, 0.51 percent, 0.48 percent and 0.08 percent respectively drawn the market.
The losses in the above stocks alongside 21 others led to the market benchmark index, the NGX All-Share-Index (ASI) fell by 0.34 percent to 108,126.97 points, as against 108,497.40 points recorded at the close of Friday trading session.
Sequentially, investors lost N230.85 billion, with market capitalization closing at N67.38 trillion while the Month-to-Date and Year-to-Date returns moderated to 3.5 percent and 5.1 percent respectively.
Further analysis shows that the total volume traded increased by 13.3 percent to 357.76 million units, valued at N9.21 billion, and exchanged in 15,914 deals. JAIZBANK was the most traded stock by volume at 48.19 million units, while ZENITHBANK was the most traded stock by value at N1.37 billion.
Sectoral performance was broadly negative, as the Banking declined by 1.4 percent, Insurance 0.9 percent, Oil & Gas 0.3 percent, Consumer Goods 0.2 percent and Industrial Goods 0.1 percent indices all settled lower.
Sterling Financial blames migration of banking application for delay in result filing
Sterling Financial Holdings Company Plc on Monday formally informed the Nigerian Exchange Limited, its shareholders, and the investing public of the late filing of its Audited Financial Statements for the year ended December 31, 2024.
The financial institution in a notification to the Exchange said, “The delay is due to the change in the core banking application used by one of its subsidiaries, Sterling Bank.”
It added that, “The migration to the new system has impacted the timing of the finalization of our 2024 AFS. As a result, our auditors will require more time to complete the Company’s audit.”
However, the Company has promised to publish its 2024 AFS on or before 30th April 2025, upon receipt of the requisite approvals.
To this end, its closure period has been extended until 24 hours after the financial statements for the 2024 financial year and the first quarter 2025 are released on the floor of NGX.
“In continuing compliance with the post-listing requirements of NGX, the previously announced closed period which commenced on 1st January 2025 will continue until 24 hours after the Audited Financial Statements for the year ended 31st December 2024 and Unaudited Financial Statements for the period ending 31st March 2025 are released on the floor of NGX,” it said.
The notification, signed by the Company’s Executive Director, Olayinka Oni, warned other directors and insiders to desist from trading on the stock during the closure period.
“Consequently, Directors and other insiders of Sterling Financial Holdings Company Plc are restricted from dealing in the securities of the Company during the closed period,” he stated.
