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Chams private placement oversubscribed
- By Chams News-Desk
- Published 10/01/2009
The
Chairman of Chams Plc, Professor Adebayo Akinde, has disclosed that the recent
N5billion private placement offer of the company was 300 per cent over
subscribed.
Professor
Akinde who disclosed this in Lagos on Friday at the Company's 25th Annual
General Meeting stated that the company has successfully put in place structures
that can withstand any challenge the industry may present. He emphasized that
the vision of the company is to become the leading provider of innovative
technologies that will improve quality of life.
Akinde
who commended shareholders of the company for their unalloyed support in
boosting the performance of the company, added that the over whelming response
of shareholders to the offer is a clear testimony to their unwavering
confidence in the board and managements of the company and reaffirmed the
company’s commitment to creating value for all stakeholders.
Commenting further on the financial performance in the year ended December 31,
2007, Akinde said “ The board of directors is proposing a dividend of
N86,103,000.00, translating to a dividend of 5kobo per share. The company
posted a turnover of N4.467 billion in 2007 as against N1.095 billion in 2006,
representing an increase by 308 per cent. Profit after tax rose by 121 per cent
from N361,691 million to N799.316 million. Earning per share stood at
N0.46 in 2007 as against N0.21 in 2006".
Akinde added that Chams has communicated its new vision that will take the
company to the next level to all stakeholders of the company in order to ensure
a suuccessful buy in. Shareholders of the company had earlier approved
the board’s proposal to list the shares of the company on the Nigerian Stock
Exchange (NSE).
The
shareholders endorsed the board’s proposal to list the company’s shares after
its successful private placement offering to raise N5 billion.
The shareholders stated that they were authorising the board to take any
actions to list the shares of our company on the NSE as well as to undertake an
Initial Public Offering (IPO) on the newly created shares.
They
expressed happiness with the success recorded in the private placement exercise
where Chams shares were over subscribed.
The shareholders at the meeting also approved that the name of the company be
changed from Chams Nigeria Plc to Chams Plc.
The Fabulous Adventures Of A Sugarcane Man
- By Chams News-Desk
- Published 31/12/1969
It is in its determination to put theatre back on the front burner of the Nigerian scheme of things that Chams Plc initiated the Chams Theatre Series last year with the production of the adaptation and translation of D.O. Fagunwa's novel, Ogboju Ode Ninu Igbo Irunmale (Forest of a Thousand Daemons).
The play was produced in English and Yoruba to packed audiences in the Nigerian cities of Abuja, Ife, Ibadan and Lagos. The second year of the Chams Theatre Series is about to kick off in Lagos, Abuja, Ibadan and Akure this November with a masterful production of Fagunwa's Ireke Onibudo.
As in last year's edition, the English adaptation has been undertaken by Professor Femi Osofisan while the Yoruba version is in the able hands of Professor Akinwunmi Isola.
Osofisan's adaptation is titled The Fabulous Adventures of the Sugarcane Man and is directed by the resourceful Dr Tunde Awosanmi.
It was indeed a special privilege to witness the dress rehearsal of the play recently at the fabled University of Ibadan theatre.
The self-effacing patron of the arts and managing director of Chams Plc, Mr. Demola Aladekomo, stresses, "the Chams Theatre Series is a strategic intervention and contribution of Chams Plc to the rejuvenation of the Arts and stage culture in Nigeria."
The card industry guru insists that the company sponsors the theatre performances as a means of promoting culture and re-orienting Nigerians to the values the citizens ought to hold dear. "We believe those values should propel action in our society," he asserts.
The grand appeal of the Chams Theatre Series has led to the Ondo State Government initiating partnership with Chams to present performances of Ireke Onibudo in the state capital, Akure.
Governor Olusegun Mimiko has thus done honour to Fagunwa, the distinguished son of Yorubaland whose roots are traceable to present day Ondo State.
The play deals with the tumultuous life of Ireke, the eponymous Sugarcane Man tossed hither and thither in the wake of squandering his patrimony through paternal profligacy and wanton philandering.
After so much trouble the hero finds redemption through love. According to the author of the Yoruba stage adaptation, Professor Isola, "In his characteristic literary style of proudly exhibiting his gift of flowery language and strength of riveting description, Fagunwa in Ireke Onibudo weaves a complex story from the rich materials he had acquired from at least three different sources: Yoruba folktales, literary works in English and Christian religious literature."
The work has a loose structure and is quite episodic, using an experienced storyteller to narrate themes laden with vices and virtues, vengeance and retribution, womanly wiles, household treachery, footloose polygamy, mind-bending suffering and triumphal love.
Prof Osofisan, who serves as the consultant to the Chams Theatre Series as well as the author of the English adaptation, reveals that Ireke Onibudo was chosen ahead of Fagunwa's second novel, Igbo Olodumare, because it "places more emphasis on exploring the capabilities of the ordinary man and woman in the grim struggle of survival that we each have to face everyday. That is why perhaps, instead of magical stunts, what we have for the most part are a succession of fables, folk-tales and animal stories, each of which presents a paradigm of our human condition."
The Ireke Onibudo offering is to the extent of shunning the otherworldly a marked remove from the magical world of the play of the first edition, Ogboju Ode.
If Igbo Olodumare had been chosen it would have meant ploughing the same terrain as in Ogboju Ode.
Plans are afoot by the sponsors to give out tickets for the performances to lucky students selected from various schools in the locations where the plays would be staged.
This way, the young ones would from the very beginning be groomed in the mores of the theatre and the moral benefits.
Through the theatre series Chams Plc has put in employment well over one hundred theatre artistes for about three months every year.
In the ennobling words of the consultant Osofisan, "The Chams company deserves every commendation for its sponsorship of such a grand cultural undertaking. This is very unique, and boldly unusual, in Nigeria's experience of art sponsorships. Most of the time nowadays all the money goes to musical jamborees and comedy shows rather than serious or cerebral activities. But Chams has chosen instead to give its support to the revival and promotion of our cultural heritage, threatened, as we all know, by the erosion of the global media. We salute their courage, their patriotism, and their vision." (Uzor Maxim Uzoatu, Guardian Newspapers)