The Securities and Exchange Commission is looking to attract more oil and gas firms, including the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation and the Nigeria LNG to the Nigerian Stock Exchange.

SEC also said it had started discussing with some offshore companies that had expressed interest in listing their shares on the floor of the NSE.

The acting Director-General, SEC, Mary Uduk, disclosed these during an interview on the sidelines of the World Bank/International Monetary Fund annual meetings in Washington DC.

She said following successes recorded in the dual listing of the shares of MTN Nigeria and Airtel, the interest of foreign issuers in the Nigerian capital market had increased.

She said, “The primary market has witnessed a new trend in the last one year with the listing of the telecom companies (MTN Nigeria) and also the recent initial public offer and dual listing of Airtel.

“The dual listing of Airtel signifies the interest of the foreign issuers in the Nigerian capital market.

“Consequent to the Airtel IPO, some offshore companies are in discussion with the commission for an IPO that will be dually listed in Nigeria and the United Kingdom.”

She said the commission was also initiating various reforms to deepen the capital market and make it more attractive to investors.

The SEC boss said the commission was encouraging more listings from key players in the oil and gas sector.

She said, “It will be great to also have the petroleum sector well represented on our market and having the NNPC will make it greater.

She said the commission had reviewed its rules to enable foreign issuers to issue Nigerian Depository Receipts that would be listed on the NSE and other Exchanges.

Uduk said technology was being deployed to deepen product innovation.

She said, “As you are very aware, companies must have good governance structure and be run properly for them to be profitable and sustainable.”

Uduk said companies had started disclosing their level of compliance to corporate governance practices, adding that this had enhanced transparency.

She said, “Now that we have a national (corporate governance) code, we expect to see high level of compliance because we have a national code now in addition re are other cases we are looking into that will become public in due time.”