THE Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) has forwarded an application to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) seeking permission to set up an Alternative Investment Market (AIMS).

The proposed market is designed to encourage firms, especially those that have embarked on private placement to list on the floor of the NSE after "required conditions have been met".

Executive commissioner of SEC in charge of operation, Daisy Ekineh, disclosed yesterday that the applications from NSE are presently being "looked into" by the relevant departments.

A senior NSE official who pleaded anonymity, yesterday said numerous investors do not understand the different between buying the shares of a quoted firm and that of those who embarked on private placement.

While confirming effort to get SEC approval to establish AIMS said it is part of measures to deepen the capacities of NSE by encouraging more firms to list their shares.

NSE also recently, announced reductions in the transactions charges for government bonds in a bid to encourage more investment in the market.

NSE in a statement NSE said the reductions cover federal, state and local government bonds.

On Federal Government bonds for primary market (new issues), yearly listing cost fixed is N20 million irrespective of the number of bonds listed by the Debt Management Office, while for secondary market (daily Trading), NSE gets N1 per million of the underlying traded (charged on sell side only), Central Securities Clearing System (CSCS) also gets N1 per million of the underlying traded (charged on both buy and sell sides) and stockbrokers receive N5 per million of the underlying traded (charged on both buy and sell sides).

NSE also explained that on state government/local government (municipal) and corporate bonds yearly listing fees remain on a low scale with no changes, ranging from a minimum of N189,000 (for issues less N50 million) to a maximum of N4.2 million (for issues above N200 billion), while NSE application levy remained at 0.15 per cent against 0.3 per cent, about 50 per cent reduction for issues up to N2 billion, 0.1 per cent for issues above N2 billion while CSCS gets 0.0125 per cent.

On Secondary market, NSE said it would receive N5 per million of the underlying traded (charged on sell side only), CSCS N10 per million of the underlying traded (charged on both buy & sell sides) while stockbrokers get N10 per million of the underlying traded (charged on both buy & sell sides).

Culled from The Guardian