London Stock Exchange, GTI to partner on Capital Market development
The London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG) and GTI Capital Group have agreed to work together with the aim of deepening the nation’s capital market capital. The understanding was reached when a team from LSEG visited GTI Group in Lagos recently. GTI Capital Group, one of the leading Nigerian investment banking firms. GTI is the first to establish aprivate securities trading floor.
Speaking during the visit, the Chief of Staff and Head, International Development, LSEG, Mr. Nikhil Rathi, said the company’s vision of setting up the securities floor would lead to a seamless facilitation of capital flow and investments between Nigerian and global financial markets.
According to him, the quality of management and information and communication technologies at GTI, the company is poised to play major role in the integration of Nigerian and global financial markets.
Also speaking, Co-Head of Emerging Markets and Head of Primary Markets, LSEG, Mr. Ibukun Adebayo, said Nigeria, as the largest economy in Africa, has huge opportunities and enormous potential for the development of its capital market and the economy.
He pointed out that Nigerian capital market is still a fraction of the country’s Gross Domestic Products (GDP), noting it ought to have been in multiples of the GDP.
He said the LSEG team, which had visited and signed Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE), was in Nigeria to facilitate dual listing and greater connectivity between Nigeria and London.
Responding, Group Managing Director, GTI Capital Group, Mr. Abubakar Lawal, said he was optimistic that the visit would engender enduring relationship between Nigerian capital market and London stock market.
He said GTI Securities’ private trading floor has created window of opportunities for investors in the United Kingdom, United States of America and other major global financial centres to trade directly on the Nigerian capital market.
He explained that there are there are huge opportunities in Nigeria’s vast natural resources which a relationship between the two groups could help to unlock.
“We need to harness the opportunities of immense capital in Europe and Americas to develop opportunities here in Nigeria,” Lawal said.
According to him, GTI’s main objective is to put Nigeria back to work by fostering the capital formation needed to resuscitate ailing companies and create new businesses that will provide jobs for Nigerians and enhance national living standards.
In his presentation, the GTI’s trading floor manager, Mr. Nnamdi Obi, said the trading floor uses a state-of-the-art trading infrastructure-FIX, which allows a broker to trade on any global exchange from the GTI’s floor.
He said the trading floor is already embedded with adequate risk management frameworks to mitigate risks that could come with global trading.
[ThisDay]