Companies can now secure capital-raising approval in two weeks – SEC

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has said companies can now obtain approval to raise capital offers in the Nigerian capital market within two weeks instead of over a year.

This was revealed in a statement signed by Emomotimi Agama, director general of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on rrecently stating that approvals would now be granted within two weeks once all necessary documents are complete.

According to the commission, the development aims to enhance the efficiency of the capital market and better support the development of Nigeria’s economy.

“Since we came on board, it is instructive to say that we have helped propel the economy. One of the things that has been a challenge before we came to the saddle was time to market. Issuers would come to the market and spend time before they got approval to raise capital,” SEC said.

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It noted that issuers are no longer experiencing delays in their applications due to various mechanisms adopted to ensure swift processing and timely approvals.

“The capital market is the life and blood of any economy, and of course, this is actually regulated by time. So one of the first things we tackled since we came was to reduce the time to market. Therefore, I can proudly say that we have reduced the time to market from over a year to fourteen days,” the commission added.

The SEC highlighted the success of the recent banking recapitalization exercise, during which banks raised over N2.2 trillion from the capital market using the electronic offering platform.

“All of these transactions have been fully subscribed, and we have encouraged the use of technology. The e-offering platform means you do not have to use paper anymore to apply in this market. We hope to get better by the day,” it said.

The commission emphasised the importance of technology in modernizing the capital market saying, “Technology is the in-thing, and the ISA 2007 has provided for that. The NGX has an e-IPO system that has proven to be very effective. All of the offers that came within this period were approved within 14 days as promised. This year, we will make more use of technology in the work that we do.”