Stakeholders seek transparency in demutualization process
Stakeholders of the Nigerian capital market have called for transparency in the ongoing demutualization process of the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE).
The process seeks to transform the exchange into a public company.
The stakeholders, who spoke to Daily Times Nigeria, said that the process of demutualizing the exchange plays a major role in determining the future of the nation’s exchange as well as the entire economy and to a larger extent, how the international investment community would see the market and the economy, post demutualization.
A stakeholder, who preferred anonymity, told Daily Times Nigeria that the ongoing process of making the Nigerian stock exchange a profit making origination, where investors will have the opportunity to buy their shares as it would also be listed on the NSE, as well, said that the process appeared to be skewed in secrecy.
Chairman, Nigerian Professional Shareholders Association, Mr. Godwin Anono, told Daily Times Nigeria in an interview that the capital market was yet to sensitives the local investing public on what demutualization entails, in order to carry everybody along.
According to him, the people should know what you mean by demutualization and how it will benefit them, he said that he needed to understand how the exchange, a self-regulatory organization will become listed and who them will it be accountable to?
“If they default, who will sanction them, and can you become the regulator and the player at the same time / all these the retail investors need to know,” Anono said.
He however, added that when the Exchange has not carried out sensitization for the local investors to know how to be involved in the process, it means that they are not thinking of carrying the common man along, which emphasized did not reflect good disclosure or sustainability practices usually preached by the market.
Anono added that transforming the NSE to a publicly quoted company, even with the impact of the government in many fronts of the exchange could amount to people in government indirectly taking over the bourse as they would be dictating what transpires in a market that is supposed to be mainly owned by the dealing members of the Exchange.
Speaking in the same vein, Chairman of the Progressive Shareholders Association of Nigeria, Mr. Boniface Okezie also called on the capital market operators seeking to demutualize the exchange to ensure that the process is not hijacked by politicians which would place the entire economy at the risk of mercy of the eventual majority shareholders.
