GTCO plans fresh expansion after London Stock Exchange listing
Guaranty Trust Holding Company made history on Thursday by becoming the first West African financial institution to have its shares listed on the London Stock Exchange.
The development has made GTCO to be dual-listed on the LSE and the Nigerian Exchange Limited.
At a ceremony to mark the listing at the LSE, stakeholders highlighted the transformation that this transaction would bring to Nigeria and the African continent.
Earlier in the month, GTCO disclosed that it would be raising about $100m from the international capital market as well as listing its securities on the London Stock Exchange’s Main Market. In a corporate disclosure filed on the NGX on Wednesday, the lender revealed that its entire issued share capital, consisting of 36,425,229,514 shares, has been admitted to the equity shares (international commercial companies secondary listing) category of the Official List of the United Kingdom Financial Conduct Authority and is trading on the London Stock Exchange’s main market for listed securities.
GTCO cancelled its Global Depository Receipts representing a certain security (depositary receipt) category of the Official List of the United Kingdom Financial Conduct Authority, and in place of the GDRs, the company’s ordinary shares were listed on the LSE main market.
Speaking at the official listing ceremony, the Group Chief Executive Officer of GTCO, Segun Agbaje, noted that investors can now benefit from the best of both worlds with this listing.
He said, “We have delisted the GDR, which means it is now listed on the secondary market like the new shares. It means that anytime you want to raise capital, you can come back to the London Stock Exchange. We have created another backroom for you to raise capital. That is why we call it the best of both worlds; you have the Nigerian Exchange Limited, and we have the LSE. We want to unlock Nigeria and Africa. We wanted to see whether the macro story of Nigeria has changed and whether you can go out and
