By Aduragbemi Omiyale
One of the leading drug manufacturers in Nigeria, Fidson Healthcare Plc, has gone to the capital market to source about N3 billion through the sale of commercial papers.
Business Post reports that it is Series 11 of the company’s N25 billion commercial paper programme aimed to diversify funding sources for its business operations.
The capital market offers business owners an avenue to get money to run their operations at lower interest rates compared with funds from commercial banks.
Fidson has previously accessed funding through the capital markets, having issued a N5 billion 210-day and 270-day commercial paper in December 2023.
A month earlier, it issued N5 billion 181-day and 269-day commercial paper to investors in the Nigerian capital market.
In March 2023, it was at the market to raise N5 billion from the same avenue through 269-day commercial paper, and in June 2022, it sold N3 billion 270-day commercial paper after it sold N2.15 billion 90-day commercial Paper in December 2021, and N4.5 billion 270-day commercial Paper in March 2021, a N2.3 billion rights issue in July 2019, and a N2.0 billion five-year secured fixed rate corporate bond in November 2014.
This time, it wants the N3 billion commercial paper through a 265-day tenor at a discount rate of 22.58 per cent. Subscription for the exercise opened on Wednesday, July 17, 2024, and will close on Tuesday, July 23, 2024.
The minimum subscription is N5 million and multiples of N1,000 thereafter, with proceeds to be used for short-term working capital requirements.
Fidson is engaged in the manufacturing, marketing, and sales of pharmaceutical and healthcare products in Nigeria and West Africa.
It currently has over 250 duly registered pharmaceutical brands, across different therapeutic areas, in the Nigerian market.
For the year ended 2023, the company recorded N53.1 billion in sales, 31 per cent higher than the N40.6 billion recorded in the previous year.
The firm boasts a wide range of over 150 high-quality, unique and innovative products that cover therapeutic areas ranging from infectious diseases, cardiovascular diseases, antimalarials, antiretrovirals, psychiatry, nutrition, nutraceuticals, antitussives etc.
About 60 per cent of these are made locally and the balance is imported.