NSE CEO Urges Companies to Adhere to Corporate Governance
The Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE), Mr. Oscar Onyema has said with the fast-changing macroeconomic environment in Nigeria and globally, listed companies should strive for sustainability by adhering to high standards of corporate governance, deeper social impact, higher regulatory compliance, and greater returns for shareholders.
Onyema, spoke through the Executive Director, Regulation, NSE, Ms. Tinuade Awe at the ‘Facts behind the figures presentation’ ceremony of Seplat Petroleum Development Company Plc last week.
He said the NSE provides a platform to support listed corporates to meet their strategic business objectives. “We continue to position ourselves as the African exchange of choice for African issuers and global investors by implementing far-reaching transformational policies aimed at strengthening the corporate governance of our listed companies, providing products that are aligned to investors’ requirements whilst also ensuring a fair and orderly market. “These initiatives have improved investor confidence and repositioned firms listed on the Exchange as attractive investment opportunities,” Onyema said. Onyema noted that as part of the exchange’s effort to deliver a world class market infrastructure, they have launched a market surveillance platform - SMARTS – powered by NASDAQ and X-Academy as part of our continuous drive to ensure increased capacity building as well as the launch of a Data Centre.
“The data centre is consistent with our tradition of pioneering far-reaching innovations within the Nigerian capital market. With this launch, the NSE now offers a secure, cost efficient and holistic cloud solutions to different stakeholders,” he said.
Commenting on Seplat, he said the exchange was pleased that the company chose to use this platform to inform the market of its financial performance, as well as its strategic and operational developments.
“Given that the market is driven by timely, relevant, and accurate information, your inter- action with the market through this forum is very welcome and we encourage you to continue with this trend.
“It goes without saying that Seplat remains a dominant player in the oil and gas sector of the economy. We commend the management for ensuring a return to full year profitability, strong cash flow generation and for its successfully concluded over-subscribed one-year extension of revolving credit facility.