NASD OTC Securities Exchange Plc, a sister company of the Nigerian Stock Exchange, has indicated its commitment to support budding enterprises and other businesses in their quest for expansion by providing avenues for them to easily access the required capital for their businesses.
The NASD said that this informed the planned launch of a platform, NASD Enterprise Platform, NASDeP, solely dedicated to information standardisation on enterprises seeking equity injection from investors.
Speaking at the Enterprise Development Center, EDC’s 2018 Investment Readiness Series in Lagos, Bola Ajomale, Managing Director/CEO, NASD, said that its vision of introducing small businesses to alternative finance option in the capital market aligns with the Nigerian Investment Promotion Commission, NIPC’s objective of ensuring information availability about investment opportunities in Nigeria.
He noted that one way of inducing economic recovery in the country is by ensuring that companies get the financing that will allow them to grow and go to the next stage of their business.
He said: “We need to take capital market upstream to develop enterprises and bring them down into the capital market. It is a bit of catch them young initiative where you encourage companies to approach the capital market rather than restricting them to seeking financing from banks and other financial institutions.
“So, what we are doing is making the capital market available to them and showing them a new way through which they can raise capital and also comply with the disciplines of the capital market in early stage so that by the time they get into the public market, it will not be a hard task for them.”
Speaking on the progress of NASDeP, Ajomale said that the Exchange has already signed Memorandum of Understanding, MoU, with five credible foundations like Tony Elumelu Foundation, FATE Foundation, Bank of Industry, BoI, Enterprise Development Center, EDC, and PWC Nigeria for the purpose of incubating interested enterprises and preparing them for investment by NASD accredited investors.
He said that the NASDeP is at its second stage which involves signing up and bringing in private equity investors. “Right now, we have lined up about 15 to 20 private equity firms who are waiting to invest in those companies. We have also on-boarded some of the due diligence analysts who will be operating as advisers to the companies as well as introduce them to the portal via the incubator pool,” Ajomale stated.