PEARL Awards Nigeria urges  government tackle  infrastructural defects, others

PEARL Awards Nigeria, has identified high cost of production and policy somersault as major impediments inhibiting listed firms’ performance in Nigeria, urging government to address these issues to enhance growth.
 
The President, PEARL Awards Nigeria, Tayo Orekoya, at a poress conference to announce the 2017 Pearl Awards Nite, slated for November 26, in Lagos, argued that for the nation’s capital market to become more competitive and attract huge investors’ participation, government needs to tackle Nigeria’s power and other infrastructural challenges.
 
He also noted that consistency in government initiatives would boost investors’ confidence, and attract more investment into the market.
“Issue of policy inconsistency by regulators and government will make it impossible for investors to come in because they cannot predict the market direction.

“Nigerian companies cannot compete favourably because cost of production is huge. The amount of resources that go into generating power for theses listed firms are huge, and it affects the consumers.” The PEARL Awards Nigeria instituted in 1995, is a private sector, not-for-profit, non-partisan and Non-Governmental Organisation initiative, to reward companies quoted on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE).for operational and stock performance based on objective and globally accepted parameters, thereby enhancing vibrancy, growth and market development.
 
Furthermore, Orekoya commended government for the various foreign exchange (forex) interventions, adding that these have impacted positively on the performance of listed firms. “With the forex interventions, you can plan and make your budgets.”
 
He decried the shallow knowledge of market operations by investors, while urging the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), to intensify efforts on investors’ education, even as they continue to introduce other initiatives that would sustain market rebound.
 
Orekoya disclosed that the 2017 Pearl Award, which marks the 22nd year of the project, was initiated to reward the performance, earnings and returns of quoted companies on the NSE, based on the results posted for the financial year ended June 30, 2016 to July 2017.
 
The criteria and methodology used, according to him, are based on verifiable facts and figures obtained through credible parameters and tools of data evaluation.
   
He said the award would serve as a guide to the investing public on the right choice of stock, because the award is coming at a time when quoted companies are trying to wriggle out of recession.
 
The Secretary, Board of Governors, Lekan Adekoya, said the PEARL Awards, after two decades (1995-2016) of publishing the Nigerian Stock Market Annual (NSMA), has decided to rest the publication and replace it with a stronger and richer online publication.
 
“Thus, effective from this year, PEARL Investors’ Review would be published online on a quarterly basis, while the bumper edition would be published in hard copy, and presented publicly at the annual Awards Nite. The objective is to make it more practical, analytical, and reader-friendly in line with technological changes in the environment.”