The NASD Plc, which operates an over-the-counter market for unlisted securities, has said the Emerging Capital Markets Task Force established by the United Kingdom Foreign and Commonwealth Office will benefit OTC markets greatly.

This was contained in a statement by the NASD, which was made available to our correspondent on Sunday.

The UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office had launched the taskforce in October 2014 to deepen and develop capital markets in key emerging economies like Nigeria through innovative collaboration between the government, private sector and UK missions.

According to the statement, the NASD is part of the Nigerian delivery group whose goals are to increase access to finance and develop the market as a whole.

It explained that the agreement, which had an initial tenure of two years, would enable the working groups to share a pool of resources, enable capacity building, product innovation and the promotion of bilateral investor protection treaties.

On the impact of the taskforce, the NASD said, “The OTC market can benefit from such partnerships by increasing awareness that it is a platform of choice for trading unlisted public securities and subsequently exploring the UK OTC market for potential partnership.”

Meanwhile, the NASD said it had admitted the securities of Fumman Agricultural Product Industries Plc have been admitted to trade on it OTC market following the introduction by Integrated Trust & Investment Limited. The development brings the total number of admitted securities on the platform to 22.

The NASD had on June 9 recorded its largest single transaction since its inauguration in 2013. The deal involved the acquisition of 127,184.030 units of FrieslandCampina WAMCO Nigeria Plc shares by its parent company, Royal FrieslandCampina Plc.

It said the implications of the deal were numerous and significant as, among other things, in pricing, “the deal was done at the prevailing market price of N315.67 per share, indicating that the OTC market price was acceptable to by both buying and selling investor.”

Source: Punch