The Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) will sanction 14 firms for failing to meet July 31 deadline for the submission of their interim financial and operational reports.
NSE sources said at the weekend that the firms were to submit their first half and second quarters’interim earnings report and accounts by that date.
NSE’s Post-listing rules require quoted companies to submit their audited earnings’reports, not later than three months after the expiration of the period. The rules also require quoted companies to submit their interim reports not later than 30 days after the end of the relevant period.
Most quoted companies, including all banks, major manufacturers, oil and gas cement companies use the 12-month Gregorian calendar as their busines year.
Their business year thus terminates on December 31. March 31 is the deadline for the submission of the yearly report of companies with Gregorian calendar business year. The deadline for the quarterly report is a month after the quarter.
The regulatory filing calendar of the NSE indicated that July 31 was the deadline for the results for the period ended June 30, thus the last working day of the period, Friday, July 29, was effectively the deadline.
Sources at the NSE said there would be no general waiver or extension of the earnings submission deadline besides the specific waiver or extension granted to some companies that had applied for such, noting that the Exchange would impose appropriate sanctions on the companies that defaulted.
The Exchange confirmed that it would sanction the companies that failed the deadline.
“The Exchange will enforce the appropriate sanctions in accordance with the Issuers’ Rule 2015 where a listed company fails to apply for an extension or provide a reasonable explanation before the due date,” NSE stated in email response to enquiry by The Nation.
The NSE indicated that about three-quarters of companies met the deadline. Besides the 14 active companies, there are also about 40 dormant companies under the watch of the Exchange.
NSE tags and fines 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 various tags or symbols to alert investors about the status of each quoted company.
These include 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, and management failures.
Also, financial services companies, such as bank and insurance companies awaiting regulatory approval, will carry the appropriate symbol of awaiting regulatory approval (ARA).
Companies undergoing a capital reconstruction, including supplementary issue, share buyback, split, and share reconstruction, will be tagged 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.
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