Nigeria’s commercial nerve centre, Lagos State, will play host to policy makers, institutional and individual investors as well as captains of industry December 9, when BusinessDay organises the 2015 Capital Market Conference.
The theme of the conference, “Nigeria’s Capital Market as Anchor for Economic Development,” was carefully chosen so that experts could proffer a multi-pronged approach to the resuscitation of Nigeria’s capital market, given its current situation even as the federal and state governments may use the platform in 2016 to raise long-term funds for infrastructure financing.
Investors have lost about N2.06 trillion year-to-date at the nation’s bourse as the market capitalisation of the listed stocks nosedived from N11.48 trillion on December 31, 2014 to N9.42 trillion by November 30, 2015.
In the same manner, the All-Share Index of the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) is down by negative 21 percent year-to-date, a development that has made Nigerian equity market one of the worst performers among emerging markets in 2015.
In this regard, expertise will be offered on how investors can make the best of the current market scenario. This is even as the nation needs about N2.24 trillion annually to finance the development of basic infrastructural facilities across the country, and the capital market is a very good avenue to raise a sizeable amount of this capital.
All the relevant institutions in the nation’s capital market industry have endorsed the conference. These include the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE), FMDQ OTC Securities Exchange plc, Association of Issuing Houses of Nigeria (AIHN), NASD OTC and Central Securities Clearing System (CSCS). Others are the Chartered Institute of Stockbrokers (CIS) and Association of Stockbroking Houses of Nigeria (ASHON).
Dignitaries expected at the event include Kemi Adeosun, minister of finance; Mounir Gwarzo, director-general, SEC, and Oscar Onyema, CEO, NSE. Razia Khan, managing director/chief economist, Africa Global Research at the Standard Chartered Bank, London, will lead discussions. Other panellists and speakers are Victor Ogiemwonyi, chairman, AIHN; Bola Onadele Koko, MD/CEO, FMDQ OTC; Bola Ajomale, CEO, NASD OTC, and Bukar Kyari, CEO, CSCS plc, and Ngozi Chianakwalam, chairman/CEO, Investments and Securities Tribunal.
Speakers will share their wealth of experiences on how better regulation, new listing and post-recapitalisation exercises will bear on wealth creation and capital market networking.
It should be recalled that after the successful recapitalisation exercise, there are now 221 active dealing members on the NSE. Forty-eight dealing members had their licences categorised as inactive, 22 members were delisted by SEC, 16 dealing members were branded as having inactive licences, while 14 dealing members had their licences revoked.
