By Dipo Olowookere
A total of 4.5 million shares of GTBank and Zenith Bank have been loaned out to interested investors under securities lending.
Securities lending involves investors offering to loan out their idle stocks to other investors willing to borrow them for a period of time for an agreed fee.
If an investor feels the share price of a particular company is likely to sell below the current value in the future and he does not have the cash to buy them now, he can opt to borrow the stocks for a fee to sell now and then repurchase them when the prices fall within the stipulated time.
In essence, an investor can borrow like 1,000 units GTBank shares at N31.2 it closed on Monday, April 26, 2021, sell at N35 and then buy the same number of shares at N28 at the exchange to return to the original owner.
About two weeks ago, Business Post reported that investors have offered to loan out a total of 162.6 million shares of Zenith Bank, GTBank, MTN Nigeria and Dangote Sugar.
On Monday, this newspaper confirmed that a total of 4.5 million units of these securities have been loaned out and they are GTBank and Zenith Bank stocks.
In a notice sighted by Business Post, it was disclosed that investors borrowed 2.5 million units of Zenith Bank equities and 2.0 million units of GTBank shares.
Adedapo Adesanya 
Modupe Gbadeyanka