Shareholders of BOC Kenya are facing a four-and-a-half month wait to receive their dividends for the year ended December 2023 after the company postponed its annual general meeting that was due to be held last week to November.
Rescheduling of the AGM has also affected appointment of new directors to the BOC’s board, including kin to the company’s former chairman Ngugi Kiuna.
The firm did not give a reason for the postponement of the AGM but said that it was due to “the concurrence of certain unforeseen circumstances”, adding that detailed notice for the postponement and the rescheduled AGM will be posted later.
Shareholders who were on the company’s register on May 31 were due to be paid a final dividend of Sh6.05 per share on July 21—upon ratification at the AGM— but this will now be paid on December 6.
“The dates for the closure of the register shall remain the same i.e. May 31, 2024 and therefore the eligibility for entitlement of dividend by members remains unchanged. However, the dividend as recommended by the board of directors, if declared at the AGM, will now be paid on or about December 6, 2024,” said BOC in its notice.
The postponement of the AGM means that Mr Kiuna, who has an 11.2 percent shareholding in BOC, will face a wait before seeing his nominee to the board take up his seat.
According to the AGM resolutions, he had put forward Dr Ngugi Kiuna for the board position, which when ratified will mark a return of a member of the family to the company’s boardroom for the first time since June 2018.
Mr Kiuna sat on the BOC board for 25 years between 1993 and 2018, and served as the chairman of the board between May 2012 and his exit in June 2018.
He is the company’s second largest shareholder behind BOC Holdings (UK), and has been building up his stake over the last three years as he fights a proposed takeover of the company through a joint bid by fellow listed gas maker Carbacid Investments Plc and Aksaya Investments LLP.
When reached for comment, Mr Kiuna said he was not privy to the reasons behind the postponement of the AGM. The annual shareholder meeting was also meant to ratify other changes in the board, including the retirement of the company’s finance director Arthur Kamau who has served in the role since 2010.
The AGM resolutions also indicated that BOC’s former chief executive officer Marion Gathoga-Mwangi had opted not to seek reelection as a non-executive board member, a position she held since January 2022.
Ms Gathoga-Mwangi served as the company’s CEO between July 2018 and December 2021 when she moved to Africa Oxygen Limited, which like BOC is a subsidiary of German multinational Linde Group.
Last month, listed media company Standard Group announced that it had appointed Ms Gathoga-Mwangi as its new chief executive officer, effective July 15.