The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has reiterated its commitment toward deepening the Nigerian capital market and strengthening liquidity in line with the 10-Year Master Plan.
Ms Mary Uduk, the Acting Director-General, SEC, made this known on Thursday at the SEC Journalists Academy in Uyo.
Uduk, speaking on “Capital Market Master Plan: The Journey So Far”, said that the commission has the potential to expedite action on the implementation of the master plan through its various initiatives.
According to her, the market crash in 2008 made investors to lose confidence and are yet to return to the market.
She explained that the 10-year-master plan was introduced to help boost investors’ confidence in the market, saying that SEC was in the process of implementing the strategies.
“In March 2008, market capitalisation reached a then all-time high of N12.6 trillion.
“Specifically in 2005/2007, recapitalising banks and insurance companies raised over 10 billion dollars from the capital market.
“However, the All-Share Index (ASI) dropped by 52.6 per cent by Dec. 31, 2008 from the high in early 2008, while average daily trading volume also dropped by about 77 per cent of high levels.
“The Nigerian stock market between March 5 and Dec. 31, 2008, therefore, lost about N5.7 trillion or 45.1 per cent in value,’’ Uduk said.
She said that the market was highly concentrated and dominated by the banking sector which constituted 60 per cent of the market then; 15 out of 20 most capitalised companies were banks.
“Risk management and corporate governance was not developed enough to support the fast growth, thereby leading to inappropriate market behaviour and abuse of margin lending.
“One of the resultant effects of the downturn was loss of confidence in the market by investors and since then, they have not fully returned to the market.
“Meanwhile, from 2008 to date, the Commission had focused on leading the market to recovery part of which is the development of the 10-Year Nigerian Capital Market Master Plan (2015-2025),’’ Uduk said.
She reiterated some of the successes achieved so far in the implementation of the plan including ensuring dematerialisation of all share certificates were fully.
Uduk said there have been recapitalisation of the capital market.
The acting director-general said that the National Investor Protection Fund (NIPF) was established to compensate investors for pecuniary losses and the e-Dividend Mandate Management System (eDMMS) was developed to reduce the quantum of unclaimed dividends.
