Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen:
It gives me great pleasure to welcome you to this Facts Behind the Listing of Ellah Lakes Plc 1.88 billion ordinary shares on the Nigerian Stock Exchange. On behalf of the National Council, Management and Staff of The Exchange, I congratulate the Board and Management of Ellah Lakes on the conclusion of the Telluria acquisition and admission of 1.88 billion additional shares.
We are pleased that the company has chosen to use this platform to inform the market of its strategic plans, operational developments and financial projections. Given that the market is driven by timely, relevant and accurate information, your interaction with the market through this forum is very welcome and we encourage you to continue with this trend.
We are certain that today’s listing has marked the beginning of a new era for the company post the previous shut down of its operations due to militant activities and vandalization of the company’s assets. The new management team has however successfully revived the company’s operations and turned around its listing status at the NSE.
The Exchange recognizes the role played by the board, management and other parties in the Telluria Limited acquisition transaction. We also commend ongoing efforts to restructure and diversify the company’s operations from fish farming to a more competitive business in oil palm cultivation and processing. We believe that this new business strategy will position the company as a major player in the Agriculture sector. Accordingly, we encourage the company to consider leveraging on the NSE platform to raise capital to fund future business expansion.
At the Exchange, we continue to provide a platform to support listed companies to meet their strategic business objectives. We will continue to position ourselves as the Exchange of choice for African issuers and global investors by implementing far-reaching transformational policies aimed at strengthening the corporate governance of our listed companies. We will also continue to provide products that are aligned to investors’ requirements whilst also ensuring a fair and orderly market. These initiatives have improved investor confidence and repositioned firms listed on the Exchange as attractive investment opportunities. The NSE is positioned as a premiere-listing destination for African corporates, governments and international issuers looking to access the capital market.
As part of our continued effort to deliver a world-class market infrastructure, we have launched a market surveillance platform - SMARTS – powered by NASDAQ; X-Academy as part of our continuous drive to ensure increased capacity building as well as launched a state-of-the-art Data Centre. The Data Centre is consistent with our tradition of pioneering far-reaching innovations within the Nigerian Capital Market. With this launch, the NSE now offers; secure cost-efficient and holistic cloud solutions to different stakeholders.
In the fast-changing governance and macroeconomic environment in Nigeria and indeed globally, we encourage Ellah Lakes Plc to continuously adhere to its post listing obligations and high standards of corporate governance. We believe that this will position you to attain deeper social impact and greater returns for your shareholders.
I want to thank my team that worked on this transaction including Primary Markets, Listing Regulations, Market Operations and Corporate Communications and all the other internal stakeholders that contributed to making today’s listing seamless.
We say a special thank you to the professional parties to the transaction, MBC Capital Limited, MBC Securities Limited and The New Practice (TNP). We also thank the invited guests for your presence today and encourage you to participate fully during the interactive session with the Company.
Ladies and Gentlemen, join me in welcoming the CFO of Ellah Lakes Plc to the podium to make his presentation.
Thank you.