Dipo Olowookere
By Dipo Olowookere
Director General of the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE), Mr Alex Okoh, has revealed plans by the Federal Government to sell 20 percent of its shares in “certain privatised enterprises” through public listing.
This information was made known on Tuesday by the BPE boss the annual national workshop of the Chartered Institute of Stockbrokers held on Tuesday, July 4, 2017, in Abuja.
The DG informed that the BPE was undertaking a quick assessment of privatized enterprises, especially in the petro-chemical sector with a view to divesting the Federal Government shares through the capital market.
“The BPE is working with core investors in certain privatised enterprises sold by deferred public offering to ensure that they sell at least 20 percent of such entities to the market via public listing”, he added.
In his paper titled ‘Creating An Enabling Environment For Public Listings Of The Economy’s Commanding Heights: The Case For Telecommunications & Energy Sectors,’ Mr Okoh stressed that public listings remain a strategic objective of the reform and privatisation programme of the Federal Government.
He explained that to achieve this, the bureau would henceforth ensure that the right core investors with the financial, technical and managerial competences were selected to ensure that they were capable of moving privatised entities to the desired level in order to make them attractive for public listings.
In a statement released on Wednesday, July 5, 2017, by BPE’s Head of Public Communications, Mr Chukwuma Nwokoh, the agency’s helmsman also said the privatisation agency would develop policies to attract additional private sector capital into the privatized companies “which will eventually give confidence to the business and encourage listing”.
He noted that the BPE would also ensure that technical partners were retained in the privatized enterprises over a long term and that there would be continued engagement with the relevant authorities to seek certain waivers where required to make public listings more easily achievable for the privatized entities.
Mr Okoh called for the establishment of an institutional framework to reach targets in both public and private sectors and to identify quick wins, medium term goals, long term achievements.
Also speaking at the event, a former DG of the BPE, Mr Benjamin Ezra Dikki, urged the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) to set up a committee to induce the telecommunications companies in the country to go to the capital market.
The BPE is a federal government body for implementation, privatisation and commercialisation programme in Nigeria.
