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London Stock Exchange seeks partnership with Nairobi bourse

Friday March 16 2018
lse

An investor follows trading on the London Stock Exchange. The bourse is seeking to woo Kenyan firms in the Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE) for dual-listing in London for both debt and equity. FILE PHOTO | AFP

By BUSINESS DAILY

The London Stock Exchange (LSE) is seeking to woo Kenyan firms in the Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE) for dual-listing in London for both debt and equity.

The announcement comes after the LSE Group recently signed an MoU with the Kenyan Ministry of Energy to dual-list the National Oil Company in both Nairobi and London with a view to developing a direct connection between the two financial markets.

“London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG) is in Nairobi to build on the strong economic partnership between the UK and Kenya and discuss how best to encourage greater capital markets collaboration, in particular around equity and debt dual-listings,” the London bourse said in a statement.

The London exchange expects that such collaborations would encourage parallel listings of Kenyan firms, said Nikhil Rathi, the chief executive of the London Stock Exchange Plc.

Mr Rathi is in Kenya and is accompanied is by Suneel Bakhshi, Chairman International Advisory Groups London Stock Exchange Group, and Nic Hailey, British High Commissioner to Kenya.

“With 110 African companies and 34 African bonds listed on our markets, we are uniquely placed to work in partnership with the Kenyan Government to offer an additional funding channel to support the country’s economic growth,” said Mr Rathi.

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Capital markets roundtable

They will meet with government officials and the capital markets community and will host a capital markets roundtable, dubbed “Bridging the Gap Between London & Nairobi.”

LSEG will use its Nairobi trip to host its fourth meeting of its London Africa Advisory Group (LAAG). LAAG brings together African business leaders and senior representatives from pan-African economic bodies to discuss the “challenges and opportunities presented by the development of Africa’s capital markets infrastructure.”

Mr Bakhshi said: “The decision to hold our fourth Africa Advisory Group meeting in Nairobi today is a reflection of our confidence in Kenya’s clear intention to build its capital markets based institutions further.” FTSE Russell, LSEG’s global indexing business, is a partner to the Nairobi Securities Exchange on benchmark indexes for the local market

LSEG is also partner to the Nairobi Securities Exchange on its technology platforms. There are 110 African companies and 34 African bonds listed on London Stock Exchange.

The LSE said this year alone, $8.5 billion —including the recent ($2 billion) proceeds for Kenya in a new sovereign bond issue —has been raised on the UK debt capital market by the Governments of Kenya, Nigeria and Egypt.

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