Aduragbemi Omiyale
By Aduragbemi Omiyale
Efforts are being made to ensure that some companies trading their shares on the Saudi Stock Exchange (Tadawul) like Aramco, Riyad Bank, and others, list their equities on the Nigerian Exchange (NGX) Limited.
According to the Chairman of NGX Group Plc, Mr Umaru Kwairanga, this would boost inflows of foreign exchange (forex) into the country and attract more investors to Nigeria.
At the moment, a few companies sell their shares on the NGX and the London Stock Exchange (LSE) and they are Seplat Energy, GTCO, and Airtel Africa.
Companies are allowed to list their stocks on two exchanges and this is called dual listing.
Over the week, President Bola Tinubu was in Saudi Arabia for the Saudi-Africa summit in Riyadh and on the sidelines of the event, Mr Kwairanga discussed how Saudi firms can also trade their equities on the NGX, especially now that Mr Tinubu was carrying out economic reforms.
He disclosed that the summit was an opportunity to seek cooperation between the Saudi government and the Nigerian business environment.
“We believe with our population, and many other advantages we have opportunities to showcase, to Africans, Arabs based out of Saudi Arabia,” he said, expressing optimism over opportunities in the NGX amid FX scarcity challenges.
“One of the discussions we had is on dual listing between the Saudi Stock Exchange and the NGX. We had a discussion with the Minister of Environment and his officials, looking at how our biggest companies quoted on NGX going to leverage this.
“We are going to take companies like Aramco to be listed on the NGX. We intend to replicate what we did on the London Stock Exchange (LSE) with the Saudi Stock Exchange regarding dual listings.
“Last month we were with Mr President in NASDAQ. We had so many discussions on many business opportunities.
“So, it will attract a lot of investors into the Nigerian economy and I believe this government is doing a lot regarding reforms.
“We need to come and showcase investors and you can see the way people have applauded Nigeria’s delegates that have come for this conference,” he stated.
