The demutualisation of the Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE) to make it a Public Limited Company (PLC) is progressing steadily, chairperson of the GSE Council, Mrs Abena Osei-Poku, has said.
Among others, the demualisation would help transform the GSE from a company limited by guarantee to a company limited by shares.
With this arrangement, the GSE can sell shares to the public and open its ownership to the general public and pay dividend to shareholders.
Speaking at the 32nd meeting of the GSE in Accra on Thursday, Mrs Abena Osei-Opoku, who was approved to serve a second term for the GSE Council from 2022 to 2024, disclosed that stakeholder discussions had been held with Licensed Dealing Members, Associate Members, Ghana Fixed Income Market members and Securities and Exchange Commission.
“Others such as Bank of Ghana and the Ministry of Finance will also be consulted. An Emergency General Meeting will be organised as soon as the various documents are finalised for members’ approval to commence implementation,” she said.
Mrs Osei-Poku indicated that the demutualisation formed part of the three-year strategic plan of the GSE, which included making the GSE preferred platform in the provision of financing and investment for public and private sectors and transform the organisation into an emerging market from a frontier one.
Highlighting on the 2021 market performance of the GSE, the GSE Council Chairperson indicated that the Exchange recorded impressive results last year.
She said the on the equities market, the GSE Composite Index, which measures the performance the entire market, recovered from the negative trends in 2020 to end the year strongly with a positive 43.66 per cent compared to the negative 13.98 per cent recorded at the end of 2020.
“This performance earned the GSE the tag of being the second-biggest performing market in Africa. The GSE Financial Stock Index also recorded a gain of 20.70 compared to the decline of 11.73 per cent in 2020,” Mrs Osei-Poku, said.
She stated that the volume of shares traded on the Accra bourse last year stood at 486.59 million valued at GH¢533.27 million and market capitalisation for all listed securities at the end of 2021 was GH¢64.50 billion, which represents an 18.63 increase compared to GH¢54.37 billion in 2020.
The Managing Director of GSE, Mr Ekow Afedzie, in an interview said the Exchange was working to attract more companies to the Exchange.
He said though the volume of trade and value traded on the Accra bourse had increased, it was largely driven by one company.
To this end, he said the GSE was intensifying public education and engagement with stakeholders to get more companies listed on the Accra bourse.
BY KINGSLEY ASARE
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