The Director-General of the Securities and Exchange Commission, Lamido Yuguda has stated that in 2024, the commission’s focus will be how to galvanise infrastructure financing through the capital markets.
He disclosed this during the third quarter post capital market committee press briefing held in Lagos.
- In his words, “The goal of the Commission in 2024 is to refocus attention on how we can galvanise capital market money into financing infrastructure. The president mentioned recently that a $1tn economy was possible in three years by 2026. And a $3tn economy is possible by the end of this decade, and I am one of those who firmly believe that this goal is possible.”
- “This country has what it takes to really do it. This is the direction of the government and this is what the Securities and Exchange Commission is doing to galvanise the market to help finance infrastructure. This is one area we focused on yesterday (at the CMC meeting), we actually set up a group to look at what we need to do to further this process,”
Recent delisting in the Nigeria Capital Markets
Mr Yuguda also commented on the recent delisting in the capital markets stating that while the recent exits were notable, there are still high capital stocks in the markets.
He further explained that a comparison in the last few between the market capital of companies that are exiting the market with new entrants into the stock’s market reveals that the exiting companies’ value are less than 2% of those that listed.
Recently, PZ Cussons, Union bank and GSK announced the process of delisting from the Nigeria Stock Exchange (NSE).
- He said, “Actually I’ll make a correction, actually the elephants are running in. You mentioned Union Bank and also a few other companies that have actually exited the market.
- “We sat down and did the math. If you take in the last few years all the companies that have exited and take their market capitalisation. That is the total value of their entire shareholding, compare it with those of the new companies that came into the market; the ones who exited they are less than two percent.”
He also noted that the commission has the support of the National Assembly in the passage of the Investment and Securities Bill which hopes to empower the commission, provide a commodity exchange market and increase sanctions for ponzi scheme operators.
