Shareholders under the aegis of Proactive Shareholders Association of Nigeria (PROSAN), at the weekend, faulted the 2017 full year result of Oando Plc.
The group also lamented the inability of the company to pay dividend to its shareholders for the fifth consecutive year.
The National Coordinator of PROSAN, Mr. Taiwo Oderinde, explained in Lagos that members of the association who are shareholders of Oando Plc have suffered substantial financial losses as a result of the company’s poor performance.
According to Oderinde, “As responsible and concerned shareholders of Oando Plc, we took up the task to protect the company and draw the attention of the general public to the recent audited financial report year ended December 2017 which was released to the public and our findings are summarized below:
“Oando Nigeria Plc has for five consecutive years suffered incredible losses with the record breaking loss in the year 2014; the first ever in the history of our capital market. There is no sharp different between the 2016 and 2017 audited financials.
“The company has continued to accrue debts to the point that its liabilities still surpassed its assets just like the year ended 2016. For example, it was reported that Axxela took a N1.5 billion loan/facility to finance the Central Horizon Expansion pipeline’s term loans among others. In addition to that loan, Oando Trading Ltd accessed over N217.2 billion ($700 million) foreign denominated loan as a short line trade finance facilities in 2017 alone.
“Sale of assets in some of the subsidiaries are one of the strategies used to boost the company earnings. Assets were sold both locally and internationally. Since the company has many unnamed subsidiaries, which is likely to be over an hundred in number structured under a very complex shareholding structure. For instance, the sale of interests in OMLS 125 and 134 to the operations for cash proceeds of N1.7 billion ($5.5 million) and the assumptions of N26.2 billion ($84.5 million) in cash call liabilities due to the joint ventures.”
The PROSAN Coordinator also accused the Minister of Finance, Mrs Kemi Adeosun and the Acting Director-General, Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Mary Uduk of sitting on the forensic audit report of Oando, “in their desperate bid to shield the management of the company from prosecution”.
He said, “We are calling on the Acting Director-General of SEC to immediately release the report of the forensic audit conducted on the company since last year although we believe the result will be compromised since they have failed to suspend the management of the company while the so-called forensic audit lasted.
“The Finance Minister and the SEC DG have created substantial instability and lack of transparency in the capital market and the attendant consequences are there for all to see.
“These two high-ranking public officials are making a mockery of the present administration’s anti-corruption drive by shielding the management of a publicly quoted company that have been indicted by an initial report of SEC for perpetrating illegalities in contravention of the Investment and Securities Act 2007.”
