GSE seeks approval for ten viable SoEs to be listed on Accra bourse

The Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE) has submitted proposals to the cabinet for approval to allow ten viable State-Owned Enter­prises (SOEs) which needed capital injection to raise some through the Accra bourse.

The Managing Director (MD) of the GSE, Abena Amoah, dis­closed this during a symposium in Accra last Tuesday and said the companies were among thirty SOEs that qualified to raise capital through the Accra bourse.

The symposium was organ­ised by the National Pensions Regulatory Authority (NPRA) as part of its 2023 National Pensions Awareness Week Cele­bration.

The NPRA Week dubbed ‘Pensions Fair’ was on the theme ‘My Pension, My Future’.

Ms Amoah, speaking on the topic “How prepared is the Capi­tal Market for Pension Funds’ In­vestments 10 Years from Now”, explained that the move was to create an opportunity for qualified SOEs to raise funds from the capital market to finance their operations.

She said the exercise was to shift the burden from the gov­ernment for capital when such SOEs needed fresh capital injec­tion, explaining that the private pensions sector was growing and needed opportunities to invest their funds.

The NPRA investment guidelines mandate the Corporate Trustee Companies to invest 20 per cent of their funds in the GSE.

She said the GSE, the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Public Enterprises, Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the State Interest and Governance Authority reviewed all the SOEs and came out with the first list of 30 SoEs which qualified for listing and raising capital through the Accra bourse.

“We have done a paper and submitted to Cabinet and essen­tially we are waiting approval for the first ten companies to come to the market,” she stated.

Ms Amoah said she was opti­mistic approval for the proposal would be granted before the end of the year to enable the ten SOEs issue their Initial Public Officers (IPOs) before end of the first quarter next year.

The MD of GSE entreated the Corporate Trustee companies managing the tier-three pension funds which currently stood at GH¢50 billion to build and support advocacy for more com­panies to be listed on the GSE, adding that it would offer them a lot of opportunities to invest and diversify their investment port­folios.

The Executive Secretary of the Chamber of Corporate Trust­ees, Thomas Kwesi Esso, also said the NPRA Investment Guidelines mandated the Corporate Trust­ees to invest about 20 per cent of their capital in the GSE, but they had not been able to do so because the GSE was not big.

He said the GSE had to be expanded so that it could take all the investments from the Corpo­rate Trustees.

The Chief Executive Officer of NPRA, Hayford Atta Krufi, in his remarks, said the sympo­sium was to create opportunity to discuss how the capital market could leverage pension funds on the capital market to increase the opportunities for contributors when they retire so they could have a decent income to live on.

The Deputy Director-General of SEC in charge of Finance, Mr Paul Ababio, urged the Corpo­rate Trustees to diversify their investment portfolios to protect their investment, and also stress the need for more players in the real sector of the economy to be listed on the GSE to raise capital.

Mr Ababio also stressed the need for the Corporate Trustee companies to push their trans­action advisors to bring more businesses to the GSE.