The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) said that Sept. 30 deadline for new minimum capital requirement for market operators would not be extended.
The acting Director-General of SEC, Mr Mounir Gwarzo, said in Lagos that the commission had no plans to extend the deadline.
“The deadline has come to stay,’’ he said adding that the capital requirement would be implemented vigorously. The deadline is still September and progress is being made, the level of compliance has gone up but we are determined to keep to that Sept. 30, no shaking, no going back. There is no going back and we are happy the way we are receiving responses from all the capital market operators,’’ Garzo said.
SEC had on Dec. 19, 2013 issued a new capital requirement for capital market operators with Dec. 31, 2014 as deadline for operators to recapitalise. SEC in response to numerous representation from the capital market community, extended the recapitalisation deadline to Sept. 30, 2015. The capital market regulator had earlier increased the minimum capital base for broker/dealer by 329 per cent from the existing N70 million to N300 million.
Broker, which currently operates with capital base of N40 million, will now be required to have N200 million, representing an increase of 400 per cent.
The minimum capital base for dealer increased by 233 per cent from N30 million to N100 million.
Also, issuing houses, which facilitate new issues in the primary market, will now be required to have minimum capital base of N200 million as against the current capital requirement of N150 million. The capital requirement for underwriter also doubled from N100 million to N200 million.
A Registrar will now have a minimum capital base of N150 million as against the current requirement of N50 million. While the minimum capital base for corporate investment adviser remained unchanged at N5 million, individual investment advisers will have to increase their capital by 300 per cent from N500,000 to N2 million. Also, dealing members of the exchange are contending with minimum operating standards recently introduced for all the three classes of dealing members, including broker dealers, brokers and dealers. The new standards address the five broad areas of manpower and equipment; organisational structure and governance; effective processes; global competitiveness and technology.
