By Aduragbemi Omiyale
The Group Executive, Head Investment Banking and Operations at FBNQuest Merchant Bank, Mr Patrick Mgbenwelu, has expressed the desire of the company to foster development in the Nigerian financial markets.
He said this is the reason the organisation has continued to support corporate firms in the country to use the capital market to raise funds for their business needs.
In recent years, the Nigerian debt capital market has seen a resurgence in the sale of commercial papers (CP), with almost N1 trillion issued in 2020.
FBNQuest played a pivotal role in reinitiating the debt instrument for non-bank issuers, leading seven institutions to establish CP programmes in the past few years.
It arranged public commercial paper issuances worth up to N400 billion for large institutions and also introduced the use of a Liquidity Support Facility (LSF) structure for UPDC Plc.
Commercial Paper transaction, a feature which enhanced the instrument’s credit with a rating of ‘A-’, and was six notches higher than the issuer’s rating on the merit of the LSF providers.
As a full-service investment bank, FBNQuest has played an essential role in several CP deals for clients such as Dangote Cement Plc., MTN Nigeria Communications PLC, Nigerian Breweries PLC, Flour Mills of Nigeria PLC, Mixta Real Estate Plc., FBNQuest Merchant Bank Ltd, Valency Agro Nigeria Ltd, CardinalStone Ltd and Prima Corporation Ltd.
For Mr Mgbenwelu, these transactions have been very successful because of the deep sector expertise and structuring skills of the lender in executing and closing the most complicated financings across all key sectors of the Nigerian economy.
“Our aim is to consistently provide extraordinary value and bespoke solutions for our stakeholders and foster development in the Nigerian financial markets at large.
“This comes with in-depth expertise of our capital markets team, comprising of professionals with experience in finance spanning international and local markets, as well as a robust understanding of the key sectors of the Nigerian economy.
“We will continue to strengthen and expand our expertise to demonstrate the most advanced and innovative, yet simple structures in the Debt Capital Markets industry,” he said.
Mr Mgbenwelu further said the company remains “committed to delivering value-added investment banking solutions to corporates, sub nationals and the federal government, leveraging our strong distributions platform and proven track record for raising funds for capital expenditure and expansion projects across diverse industries and the public sector.”
Dipo Olowookere 
Adedapo Adesanya