GSE lobbies for patronage of the Ghana Fixed Income Market

The Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE) is impressing on companies to utilize the Ghana Fixed Income Market (GFIM) to raise funds for their operations.

According to the managers of the GSE, the ready market for bonds should make it easier for businesses to adopt the platform to raise corporate bonds and meet the demand.

“The market is actually growing as more monies are been raised through the issuance of corporate bonds on the GFIM. It is possible to raise money by issuance of bonds on the GFIM,” the Deputy Managing Director of the GSE, Ekow Afedzi stated.

The Ghana Fixed Income Market (GFIM) has so far accrued over 370 million cedis.

This comes within a year of its establishment as an alternative platform for businesses to raise debt instruments for their expansion drive.

It runs parallel to the Ghana Alternative Market (GAX) which is geared towards assisting businesses to raise equity funding for their expansion.

Mr.  Afedzi, who is lobbying for the patronage of the GFIM, maintains that the market will perform better if investors consider hooking unto it for funding needs.

The Deputy GSE boss also suggested that the framework provided for by the NPRA regulations should make it easier for businesses to adopt the GFIM.

“This is as a result of the fact that we do have pension funds that have the appetite for debt instruments and indeed the guidelines of the National Pensions Regulatory Authority (NPRA) for investors favours debts,” he observed.

Ekow Afedzi further intimated, “We need to ensure that the supply or issuance side is boosted; we need to have more corporate bonds on the market so that the demand meets supply adequately.”

Recent issues that have been listed on the Ghana Fixed Income Market include; the proceeds from the 1.8 billion dollars 2016 cocoa syndicated loan, government's first 2 year local dollar denominated bond (94.62 million dollars) as well as the first tranche (5 million dollars) of Ghana Home Loans' 100 million dollar 5year bond.

–
By: Pius Amihere Eduku/citibusinessnews.com/Ghana