Firm woos investors to N500 million rights issue

The Chief Executive Officer of Consolidated Hallmark Plc, Eddi Efekoha, has expressed optimism that the company would record maximum level of subscription on the on-going N500 million rights issue, urging shareholders to participate actively and boost their portfolio.

Efekoha said that as the offering has opened, it is hoped that the company’s shareholders will pick up their rights, at a press briefing held in Lagos, noting that the company has recorded about 30 per cent of returns on investment to shareholders.

“Today is a special day for us as a company, as our rights issue has opened. Since 2017 that three companies came together and merged to become Consolidated Hallmark Insurance Plc, we have not gone to the capital market to raise any money,” he said.

Reviewing the company’s performance, he said the management has grown “our business, taking few advantage of the synergy from all of the merging partners. Today by virtue of performance in 2016, we have grown gross premium from N1 billion to over N6 billion.

“By way of dividend we have paid dividend not in all the years, but we have sufficient dividend in the last 10 years to earn above average mark. We had the opportunity of paying dividend 11 times, but we have paid about six times.

“Cumulatively we have paid over N1.1 billion and remember our capital base is N3 billion. So if cumulatively over this period we have paid N1.1 billion that means also that we have done over 30 per cent by way of returns to shareholders.’’

“But beyond that the assets has grown. We have total asset at about N7 billion and net asset is about N4.4 billion at year end, but still again with capital of N3 billion generating a net asset of N4.4billion and in spite of the fact that we have paid about N1.1 billion and bear in mind that we equally lost money in the capital market when that market crashed we lost about N800 million.”

Speaking on the company’s strategic plan, he said, “In 2007, just on the back of banking consolidation, insurance industries commenced their own.  Some of us did it alone; some of us look at the larger picture because we felt it goes beyond raising capital. If you raise capital and you don’t have the people, then of course the capital will just remain idle and you may not be able to deliver the service.

“For us, much as we are on threshold of raising the money, we still felt it was better to combine our operations and we decided to look for other partners and we found two in order to meet the capital requirement and at the same time meet our own set agenda of running the business.

“So three companies came together and merged and these companies as it were then are:  Consolidated Risk Insurance Plc, Hallmark Assurance Plc and Nigeria General Insurance Company Limited. They merged to form what is known today as Consolidated Hallmark Insurance.”