NIGERIAN Exchange Limited (NGX) has reaffirmed its commitment to growing the Nigerian Capital Market (NCM) through measures aimed at enhancing stock market investor engagement.
The NGX announced this at a recent virtual Retail Investor Webinar in Lagos titled “Increasing Retail Participation through Digitalization.”
Jude Chiemeka, the NGX’s Divisional Head of Capital Markets, said that retail involvement in the capital markets has risen steadily over the years, owing to technology developments and digital innovations, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Chiemeka reported that over six million Americans downloaded a trading app in January 2021 alone, and retail brokerages had record-high average daily volumes for equities and options trades, according to a 2021 research titled “The Rise of Newly Empowered Retail Investors.”
“The rise in retail engagement can also be witnessed in India’s stock market, where active investor accounts climbed by a record 10.4 million in the post-pandemic 2020 period.”
Chiemeka noted that the exchange is interested in collaborating with organizations that have proven and reliable technological solutions to adapt to digital trends and technologies, as well as innovate with new business models and products/services, while listing its efforts and strides to increase investor participation in the NCM.
According to him, the exchange facilitated the public offer for the sale of 575 million shares owned in MTN Nigeria by MTN Group to investors, mainly the retail segment, through the NGX primary offer app in December 2021.
The offer was priced at N169 per share and was 139.47 percent oversubscribed.
According to him, the oversubscription prompted MTN to issue an extra 86.25 million shares, bringing the total number of shares to 661.25 million.
“A total of 126,720 retail investors submitted valid applications and received a full allotment. More than 89 per cent of retail offer subscribers applied through the PrimaryOffer platform and 114,938 new Central Securities Clearing System accounts were opened by first-time investors”, he said.
