Société des eaux minérales du Cameroun hopes to double social capital to 1.9 billion FCfa

The first company listed on Douala Stock Exchange (DSX), the Cameroon securities exchange, Société des eaux minérales du Cameroun (Semc), subsidiary of Brasseries du Cameroun of the French group, Castel, plans to increase its social capital. This will be done during the mixed general assembly to be held on June 10, 2014 in Douala to indicate a release published by the company.

Following this operation, SEMC will have a social capital of 1.924 billion FCfa against its current 920 million FCfa which is an increase of a little over 100%. This increase will be done by “integrating the totality of the revaluation surplus and by drawing from its free reserves,” according to the release.

In essence, the company indicates “that 100,635 new shares completely freed, which will be freely distributed to shareholders in proportion to what they had in the former social capital.”

This recapitalisation comes at a time when the Brasseries du Cameroun subsidiary has finished 2013 with a dead loss of over 319 million FCfa against 50.5 million FCfa in 2012, according to the company’s financials.

This will not prevent shareholders from distributing 60.7 million FCfa in dividends (660 FCfa per share) taken from “free reserves” for 2013.