SEC seeks FG’s incentive for listed companies; as NSE market capitalization scales N10trn mark in 2016

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Friday, in Abuja appealed to the Federal Government to evolve more incentives for companies listed on the bourse.
This is also the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE)’s market capitalisation, Friday, scaled N10 trillion mark for the first time in 2016.
Director-General of the Commission, Mounir Gwarzo made the appeal when he led a delegation on a courtesy visit to the Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed.
Gwarzo, who presented the Nigerian Capital Market Masterplan 2015-2025, stressed the need for private companies to be listed in the exchange.
“We seek your assistance for companies to be listed on our exchange and we think government has important role to play in this.
“We are not saying that government should compel companies to be listed, but it can give them incentives to be listed.
“Some of the incentives could be that when government is giving a contract, it could say that listed companies on the exchange could have a certain percentage for considerations.
“We believe this is very good because statistics have shown that over 60 per cent of the company tax paid in Nigeria is paid by listed companies.
“When companies are listed, they are also more transparent and one of the major hallmark of this administration is transparency,’’ he said.
The D-G said that the master plan was also designed to encourage retail investors in the nation’s capital market.
According to him, Nigeria has less than two per cent of retail investors in the capital market compared to Malaysia with nine per cent, South Africa with 19 per cent, U.S. with 45 per cent and UK with 97 per cent..
“One of the key ingredients for the development of capital market is to bring back the retail investors,’’ he said.
Gwarzo said that SEC had over N80 billion unclaimed dividends because of administrative bottlenecks attached with dividends warrants.
In addressing this, he said, the commission introduced e-dividend for ease of access.
He explained that with e-dividend, investors could approach their banks download and filled forms for dividends to be paid directly into their accounts, just as he further solicited the support of the minister in the propagation of the master plan and the e-dividends.
Meanwhile, market capitalisation of the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE), Friday, crossed the N10 trillion mark for the first time in 2016 as a result of the just released flexible foreign exchange window by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).
The market capitalisation rose by N262 billion or 2.66 per cent to close at N10.04 trillion compared with N9.78 trillion achieved on Thursday.
Similarly, the All-Share Index crossed the 29,000 mark, appreciating by 757.40 points or 2.66 per cent to close at 29,247.27 against 28,489.87 posted on Thursday.
The growth was strongly boosted by price appreciation recorded by some highly capitalised stocks such as Nigerian Breweries, Dangote Cement, GT Bank, Guinness, Lafarge Africa and Zenith Bank.
Dangote Cement topped the gainers’ table with a gain of N8.75 to close at N183.81 per share.
Nigerian Breweries rose by N7.10 to close at N148.86 and Guinness inched N1.50 to close at N104 per share.
Lafarge Africa garnered 99k to close at N75, while GT Bank gained 91k to close at N21.61 per share.
Conversely, Total recorded the highest price to lead the losers’ chart, losing N5.99 to close at N173.01 per share.
ConOil dipped N1.15 to close at N21.85, while NAHCO lost 45k to close at N4.23 per share. Berger Paints dropped 40k to close at N7.60 and Oando shed 32k to close at N7 per share.
United Bank for Africa was the most traded stock with an exchange of 187.14 million shares valued at N897.29 million.
It was followed by FBN Holdings having accounted for 100.72 million shares worth N439.09 million, while Zenith Bank traded 63.92 million shares valued at N1.07 billion.
GT Bank sold 60.88 million shares worth N1.28 billion and Access Bank traded 57.20 million shares valued at N341.04 million.
In all, a total of 628.75 million shares worth N6.79 billion were exchanged by investors in 5,965 deals.
This was in contrast with 618.25 million shares valued at N5.41 billion transacted in 6,757 deals on Thursday.