The bearish sentiment in the equities market turned for the better this week (24th-28th, June), as the market gained 0.39 percent, easing the YtD return to -4.66 percent.
However, persistent selloffs in the month of June settled the month-to-date return at -3.55 percent. During the week, Airtel Africa carried out an Initial Public Offering (IPO) on the London Stock Exchange in the United Kingdom (U.K) under the ticker “AAF” and the company is scheduled to carry out a secondary listing on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) in the coming week.
The company listed at a price of 80 pence (NGN363) and the admission on the exchange is supposed to take effect on July 3rd, 2019. Although the offer was oversubscribed with strong interests from institutional investors, its share price has slumped by 16 percent.
In the fixed income market, investor sentiment was bullish, reflected by respective yield declines of 0.31 percent and 0.18 percent in the secondary markets for bonds and treasury bills.
On Wednesday June 26th, the Federal Government of Nigeria through the Debt Management Office (DMO) carried out a primary market bond auction, where it raised NGN96.84bn. The offer was well oversubscribed with bid-to-cover ratios of 1.35x, 1.66x and 1.92x across the three instruments on offer.
