NAN-HE-26
Sanction
By Chinyere Joel-Nwokeoma
Lagos, Oct. 13, 2016 (NAN) The Independent Shareholders Association of Nigeria (ISAN) on Thursday attributed the inability of companies to seek quotation on the nation’s bourse to incessant penalties meted out to quoted companies by market regulators.
The National Coordinator of ISAN, Mr Sunny Nwosu, made the assertion in Lagos at a news conference heralding the association’s 2016 Triennial Delegates Conference/Gala Night.
Nwosu said that sanctions imposed on quoted companies by the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) made companies to shy away from listing on the exchange.
He said that market regulators should be weary of sanctions in order to grow the market.
“We should be careful of punitive measures if we want to develop the market,’’ Nwosu said.
He said that the spate of sanctions in the market was eroding investors’ confidence.
Nwosu also said that regulators preference for foreign investors contributed to the development in the capital market.
He called on SEC and NSE to strengthen their enlightenment programmes on ways to bring retail investors back to the market.
“The market is suffering because it has minimal retail investor participation,’’ Nwosu said.
He said that “retail investors are the ones that will develop the market and not foreign investors that can leave at any given time’’.
Nwosu said that the capital market remained the best form of savings for investors in spite of its current performance due to economic recession.
On the listing of multinationals, Nwosu called on the Federal Government to use moral persuasion instead of force because of “free entry, free exit’’.
He said that government failed to enter into an agreement with these companies on listing plans when they first came into the country.
The shareholder activist said that government should as a matter of urgency list all its unbundled agencies to encourage companies to toe the same line.
“Government has yet to list its agencies on the exchange and we are saying that charity should begin at home,’’ Nwosu added.
On the conference, he said that economic experts would chart the way forward for the regulation to drive Nigeria’s early recovery from recession.
He said that ISAN would at the conference, slated for Oct. 14 in Lagos, nominate new a National Coordinator and other officials.
Nwosu said that the conference has the theme, “Financial Turbulence and Regulatory Framework in a Recessive Economy’’. (NAN)
JNC/PDE
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(Edited by Peter Ejiofor)