Unclaimed dividends have been significantly reduced – Olugbemi

The efforts of regulators and registrars have led to a reduction in unclaimed dividends to 5.05 per cent of total dividends declared in the last 10 years, the Institute of Capital Market Registrars, has said.

According to the institute, this is a major improvement over the situation in the past when the level of unclaimed dividend was as high as 24 per cent.

The President, Institute of Capital Market Registrars, Mr. Bayo Olugbemi, said this in Lagos ahead of the institute’s 5th annual conference, which is scheduled to take place in Lagos on June 21.
He said, “The efforts of regulators and registrars have yielded significant results in reducing unclaimed dividends in the market. Some years back the percentage of unclaimed dividends was around 24 per cent. But we have reduced it to below 20 per cent, 10 per cent and 5.05 per cent as at last December. We are still doing more to make it lower.”

Olugbemi explained that the level of unclaimed dividend, which stood at N50.936bn at the end of December 2013, appeared huge because the value of dividends being declared by companies was higher than what obtained a few years back.

The reality, he said, was that percentage-wise, the level of unclaimed dividend was far less than it was in the past.

For example, he said, “Last year alone, some banks paid dividends of over N30bn, some over N54bn. Ten years ago the likes of Dangote Cement were not in the market but last year alone, the company declared dividend of about N120bn. So, if the unclaimed portion of the entire dividends paid in the market in the past 10 years is 5.05 per cent as at December, 2013, I believe it is a good effort.”

The ICMR president explained that the annual conference, designed to encourage the growth of the capital market, would focus on corporate governance.

He said this was because the issues that differentiate the capital markets of developed countries different from that of Nigeria revolved around the practice of good corporate governance by stakeholders.

Olugbemi said, “The institute has, therefore, carefully thought it wise and critical to deliberate on the theme, ‘Developing a world-class capital market; the need to strengthen adherence to corporate governance practices; the role of regulators, operators and investors’ in this conference.”

He added that a former deputy governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Mr. Tunde Lemo, will deliver the keynote address at the conference, which is “part of the contributions of the institute to ensuring the continuous improvement of investors’ confidence in the market and sustaining the growth of the market in terms of capital literacy and participation.”

Source: The Punch