Shareholders who are wary of what future holds for them at the Cadbury Nigeria plc following the report on its financial misappropriation have continued to drop their share holdings with the company.

Within two days of trading in 2007, Cadbury has shed N3.16 of its share price. The company closed the last transaction day December 29, 2006 with a share price of N32.46 per share. The next business day, the first in 2007, January 4, Cadbury recorded a loss of N1.62 to close at N30.84 per share. It dropped further by N1.54 to close at N20.3 per share.

Nigerian Stock Exchange market daily summary showed that as at September 28, 2006, share rice of Cadbury was as high as N56.72 and in three months, from September 28 till date, Cadbury has shade above N27 of its share price.

While it is expected that the Nigerian subsidiary of the British confectionery giant may shed more weight, market analysts have warned investors over panic selling of the company’s share.

While condemning manipulated financial figure presented by Cadbury, some market stakeholders have also commended the company’s boldness to admit its fault.

Speaking recently, Jeff Emalaba, chief executive officer of Emron Investment and financial analyst, advised the shareholders of the embattled company to look at the whole situation from two sides. Emalaba admitted that the current reaction by Cadbury’s shareholders is quite natural but strongly believe that the company will bounce back at the long run.

At the middle of fourth quarter, 2006, there was a revelation that Cadbury Nigeria plc over stated its accounts by a staggering N15 billion. The action led to chain of other events which include the sack of the company’s managing director Bunmi Oni and finance director Ayo akadiri.

Soon after the fund misappropriation report, the company’s share price started succumbing to the depressing news.

Market operators believed that the investors’ fear was heightened by of over N1 billion loss recoded by the company. The loss was discovered after the review of the company by Pricewaterhousecoopers. - BusinessDay