NASD Plc aims to raise about N165.5million through its on-going Rights Issue which opened Monday 20th to close April 28, 2017.
The promoter of Nigeria’s Trading Network of all securities of unquoted public companies is currently issuing (111.051million) 111,051,098 ordinary shares of N1 each at N1.49 per share in the on-going Rights Issue.
Capital Bancorp plc is the Lead Issuing House to the NASD Plc Rights Issue, while Capital Assets Limited is the Joint Issuing House to the Rights.
Also, among other parties to the Rights Issue, Dama Afabor & Co is the Solicitors to the Rights Issue; United Securities Limited is the Registrars; while GTBank Plc is the receiving bank to the Rights Issue of NASD Plc.
NASD Plc plans to uses the proceeds from the Rights Issue to shore up its capital base to meet up with the minimum capital of N500million stipulated by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
The Rights Issue will also allow the SEC registered Over-The-Counter (OTC) securities exchange to achieve its strategic objectives around New Trading Platform, Expansion of Product lines.
Details of the Rights Issue utilisation show: New trading platform (N50million) which is 31.10 percent of the total proceeds.
Expansion of Product line will also gulp N50million from the Rights Issue proceeds while N60.78million from the Rights Issue proceeds will be immediately deployed by the Company as working capital.
NASD Plc, which evolved from the National Association of Securities Dealers was incorporated as a Private Limited Liability Company on June 1, 1998 for the purpose of establishing a formal Over-The-Counter (OTC) securities exchange in Nigeria, to facilitate a structured trading arena for unlisted equities, bonds and money market instruments. It was converted to a Public Limited Company in April 2012.
As at the date of the Rights Circular seen by BusinessDay, the company had no outstanding debentures, mortgages, loans, charges or similar indebtedness or material contingent liabilities or other similar indebtedness, other than those incurred in the ordinary course of business.
The NASD OTC market facilitates transactions through two independent trading platforms: Leased trading platform and the BITS.
NASD leased trading platform is a platform recently acquired by the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) from Nasdaq OMX which allows for multilateral trading and continuous transaction reporting.
NASD leased the trading platform from the NSE and all its Participating Institutions (PIs) are given access to trade on this segment of the market.
Clearing through this platform is provided by the Central Securities Clearing System CSCS) while settlement is done by six appointed settlement banks for NASD OTC transactions.
BITS is a bi-lateral inter-dealer trading system proprietary to the NASD which allows trades to be conducted and consummated between select Participating Institutions. This web based platform allows brokers to interact from all corners of the world. Originally BITS was used to trade equities in all unquoted public companies, but increasingly it has become a platform for other asset classes.
Iheanyi Nwachukwu
