By Dipo Olowookere
The regulator of the stock market in Nigeria, the Nigerian Exchange (NGX) Regulation Limited (RegCo), has announced its intention to change rules guiding free-float for companies listed on the NGX Limited.
In a notice obtained by Business Post, the organisation further said it wants to amend the cross-border listing rules and develop guidelines for migrating listed securities from one board of the bourse to another.
At the moment, the exchange does not have rules regulating the migration of listed securities from one board to another, prompting the regulator to “address this lacuna and to foster NGX’s commitment to continuously making its rules more user friendly, easier to understand and aligned with global best practices in light of the peculiarities of the Nigerian market.”
According to the disclosure, NGX RegCo will come up with “the prerequisites for migration of issuers’ securities from one board of the exchange to another” to allow stakeholders to understand the requirements and process of migrating their securities between different boards of the NGX.
As for the cross-border listing, the main focus is to fast-track the listing process. It also intends to expunge “listing fees in the appendix to the cross-border listing rules; and the various dispensable provisions such as cross-border listing regulatory agreement, in-bound listing, and capital raising by an issuer with secondary listing” from the rules.
On the free-float, it was stated that the reason for the change is to address the difficulties companies face in meeting the requirements.
“The proposed amendments will, among other things, introduce changes to the free-float requirements for NGX’s Main Board and its Growth Board, provide enforcement actions against deficient companies, outline compliance requirements for monitoring them, as well as specify the timelines for granting extension of time to cure free float deficiencies.
“We believe that the proposed amendments will make the requirements less stringent, strengthen related risk management and internal control processes within Issuers’ operations, and engender increased compliance by them,” a part of the notice signed by the chief executive of NGX Regco, Ms Tinuade Awe, stated.
The organisation has called on stakeholders to contribute to the review by forwarding their input in a Microsoft Word document attached to an electronic mail to the Head of Rules and Adjudication at NGX RegCo, Mr Oluwatoyin Adenugba, via [email protected], with a copy to [email protected] until the close of business on Thursday, October 5, 2023.
