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May 14, 2011

Market agency plans to woo more multinationals

Following the delisting plan of the Nigerian Bottling Company (NBC), the bottlers of Coca Cola products, from the Nigerian capital market, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), stock market regulator, said part of its "key plans" this year is to woo more multinationals to the market.

Daisy Ekineh, SEC's executive commissioner in charge of operations, said recently at a closed-door meeting with market operators that the Commission is working at "promoting more listings of oil and gas companies, telecoms companies, small scale enterprises, and privatised enterprises" while it will keep "encouraging companies to stay listed" in the market.

Mrs Ekineh said the other key plans for the year include market structure and the reform of the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE).

On market structure, she said the commission is introducing "risk-based supervision of regulated entities and resolve intermediary structure; should broker community be stratified into prime brokers/universal broker (full range brokers), execution only broker, or sub-brokers (brokers' agent)." She added that SEC will ensure "complaint management framework" while it will encourage functional market makers that will introduce securities lending and borrowing.

On the reform of the Exchange, Mrs Ekineh said the commission will continue to work with the NSE to resolve issues around "governance, trading platform, commencement of dematerialisation and demutualisation process." The SEC's commissioner said that there is need to privatise the Abuja Securities and Commodities Exchange in order for it to add value to the entire capital market system,

adding that SEC will have to work with market operators to achieve this.

Corporate governance

Mrs Ekineh said SEC will strengthen corporate governance at the Exchange through the newly launched code of corporate governance for market operators. She said the commission will embark on more programmes on corporate governance, adding that "further strengthening and enforcement of financial and periodic disclosures by public companies" will be embarked on.

"This will encourage timely and quality of disclosure and allow the public access to information," she said.

On investors' education, she said several methods such as "road shows, print and electronic media, lecture series, and the promotion of collective investment schemes" will be used to educate indigenous and potential investors in the market.

Investors' confidence

Following the various developmental measures being put in place, Oscar Onyema, the new chief executive officer of the NSE, said, "The Exchange will, in no distant future, become the gateway to African frontier markets." Speaking last Thursday at a dinner party organised by the Exchange in honour of Emmanuel Ikazoboh, the former interim head of the NSE, Mr Onyema said the new management of the Exchange knows the enormity of expectations of market operators from them. "We don't need to be told that we are faced with the daunting task of bringing back investors' confidence, to convince them that their investment is safe in our market, among others," he said.

He added that with the support and cooperation of market operators, the management will restore investors' confidence in the market. "We may have to take some decisions that may look harsh, but if this is necessary to further reposition our market and place it where it should be, we will not be afraid to take them," Mr Onyema said.

Meanwhile, some market operators said if the Exchange Commission works at achieving its plan for the year, the development will attract more multinational companies to the capital market.

Legislative support

Sunny Nwosu, the national coordinator of the Independent Shareholders Association of Nigeria, said that the Nigerian government should have a legislative means of persuading multinational companies in the telecommunication, oil and gas sectors to be listed on the nation's stock exchange. "A company like MTN, Shell and Chevron and other exploration companies should also be persuaded to list their companies. Their ordinary 10 percent equity will deepen the market and give a lot to local investors," Mr Nwosu said.

He also blamed Nigerian directors in some multinationals that are yet to be listed on the Exchange for their greed. "I think that it is the fault of Nigerian directors who do not want other Nigerians to enjoy what they are enjoying in those companies. I blame the directors because they could not advice the foreigners on how to ensure that the power of Nigeria's spending is shared through profits to Nigerians," Mr Nwosu said.

Boniface Okezie, the national chairman of the Progressive Shareholders Association of Nigeria, said market regulators should discipline themselves in terms of work ethics in order to woo more companies to the market.

"These regulators are part of the problems affecting market confidence," Mr Okezie said, adding that "when regulators do not follow due process in executing its duties, multinational companies and other operators will not be attracted to the market while some will begin to delist from the market." The NBC, one of the few listed multinational companies at the NSE, announced late last year of its plan to delist its shares from the capital market after being listed for over 37 years.

Source: http://234next.com

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