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…After ‘No Objection’ Letter From SEC
The Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE), will soon hold a court ordered meeting and Extra Ordinary General meeting (EGM), after a ‘No Objection’ approval letter received from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) last month on it’s demutualisation plans.
Demutualising an exchange help transforms it from being owned by members or brokers, to one with a different governance structure where members of the public can buy shares.
Addressing stakeholders at the 2019 Market Recap and 2020 Outlook held in Lagos on Monday, the Chief Executive Officer of the NSE, Oscar Onyema said: “ Now that we have seen the ‘No objection’ letter from the SEC in December, we are now putting in place final touches to have the court ordered meeting and the EGM.
“There will be significant engagement with investors, press and our primary constituency the brokers and other members of the exchange and the general public. So there is a very robust plan already in place.
“We are working as quickly as we can to complete it and we hope that very soon, we will put out the notices for the EGM, there is statutory requirement, you have to wait for 28 days for the court ordered meeting when you did the notice after the EGM 21 days.
He added: “We are following the process and we worked through the holiday period to see how quickly we can bring in these meetings.”
According to him, the exchange is working in collaboration with the SEC and EFCC to ensure that its zero tolerance to infractions are strictly adhered to, in addition to other measures already on ground to strengthen enforcement.
“The exchange is a self regulatory organization, while we have a number of tools to address infractions from an enforcement perspective.
“We have to work in partnership with the SEC and EFCC to address other aspects of enforcement where our powers are limited. so those engagements are well defined and we continue to meet with them on a regular basis.”
Speaking on delisting of companies, he said the exchange would continue to provide value for listed firms to enable them find a compelling case to list or to stay listing.
“The life of an exchange is such that some companies leave and another company come on board. If you look at the market cap of the exchange, we have gotten a number of heavy weights and we also lost a number of companies.
“What the exchange is actually trying to do is that we have to be positive in terms of number of companies listed and market capitalisation.
“We can not force anybody to stay listed or even list in the first place. We have to provide the value and we hope they continue to extract that value and find a compelling case to list or to stay listing. ” We would continue to work with the various parties. Before a company delists, even if it is through a merger, there is a lot of engagement that goes on.
“Sometimes we have this engagement even in their home countries to make sure that we are tapping into the most senor people, the people that have the decision making powers.”
Onyema listed crude oil price and production, global economy, political stability and business environment as key factors that would shape Nigerian economy in 2020.
Onyema said that these key factors would be the drivers of the nation’s economic performance in 2020.
