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The Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) again made good its promise to continue to provide stakeholders with access to capital even in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The effort was evidenced by the successful listing of FBNQuest Merchant Bank’s N5 billion three-year 10.50 per cent bond on the NSE commemorated with a digital closing gong ceremony at the weekend.
Commenting on the listing, the Chief Executive Officer of the Exchange, Oscar Onyema, said NSE was pleased with FBNQuest Merchant Bank’s debut listing of a N5 billion Series 1 Bond on its platform and added that it would continue to support the bank in meeting its capital raising needs and business objectives.
“We also commend all the parties to the transaction. At the NSE, we are committed to giving issuers and investors a platform to access right-sized capital even in the toughest of times as well as providing opportunities for secondary market trading activities across multiple asset classes – equities, bonds, ETFs. FBNQuest Merchant Bank is a beneficiary of this and we are pleased to welcome them.”
Speaking on the transaction, Managing Director,FBNQuest Merchant Bank, Kayode Akinkugbe, said: “This is the debut bond issued by the organisation, and the success recorded attests to the degree of confidence investors have in the business. As a full-service investment bank and asset manager, we advised on the bond issuance and structure, and also leveraged our extensive distribution capability to ensure the success of the transaction.”
FBNQuest Merchant Bank is the second organization honoured with a digital closing gong following the maiden edition earlier in April with Sterling Bank. These closing gong ceremonies attests to the resilience of the NSE’s technology platforms which have supported dealing members in trading remotely without incident via electronic platforms, i.e., FIX Protocol, X-NET, and the newly implemented Virtual Private Network (VPN).
The bank has advised on the issuance of several bonds and commercial papers for organisations such as Interswitch; Mixta Real Estate Plc, Dangote Cement Plc, Nigerian Breweries Plc (NB), Lafarge Africa Plc, Flour Mills of Nigeria Plc (FMN), Wema Bank Plc and UACN Property Development Company Plc (UPDC).
