Nigerian Stock Exchange Moves Access Bank, UBAto Premium Board

The Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) has approved the elevation of Access Bank Plc and United Bank for Africa Plc to Premium Board. The two banks have joined Dangote Cement Plc, FBN Holdings Plc and Zenith Bank Plc, which were the pioneer firms on the board when it was introduced in 2015.

The premium board feature companies that meet the exchange’s most stringent listing criteria of capitalisation, governance and liquidity. It aims to provide a platform for greater global visibility for eligible African corporates to make it easier for them to attract global capital flows and reduce the cost of funding.

The board is for companies with minimum market capitalisation of N200 billion and highest corporate governance standards. Also, companies aspiring to be listed on the premium board must achieve a minimum score of 70 per cent on the stringent Corporate Governance Rating System (CGRS). In addition, they are required to maintain a minimum free float of 20 per cent of their issued share capital or a free float value equal to or above N40 billion.

The NSE yesterday approved UBA and Access Bank to join Dangote Cement, FBN Holdings Plc and Zenith Bank Plc, which will bring the number to five.

UBA Plc’s and Access Bank Plc’s market capitalisated stood at N427 billion and N376 billion respectively as at yesterday.

Commenting on the premium board the Chief Executive Officer, NSE, Mr. Oscar Onyema had said: “The exchange is a member of the United Nation’s Sustainable Stock Exchange Initiative, which is designed to encourage stock exchanges to influence their ecosystem to adopt sustainable ways of doing business around environmental, social, and governance dimensions. The premium board is one result of our commitment to place corporate governance front and centre as a way to improve the climate for doing business in Africa. We expect that companies on the Board will enjoy the highest levels of visibility and appeal to investors looking for large companies with the highest standards of corporate governance.”

Following the introduction of the premium board, the NSE also launched the he Premium Board Index (PBI), which serves as a benchmark for investors looking to track the performance of large firms with excellent corporate governance and sustainable business models.

“The PBI is an equity index designed to provide a benchmark to capture the performance of companies listed on the Premium Board. The index will also provide a basis for developing products (such as ETFs and equity index derivatives) that are tradable on the bourse,” the exchange had explained.