Nigeria Content Online

The global
financial meltdown took its toll on investment banking business
worldwide, with a drop in the volume of transactions recorded during
the 2008 – 2010 period.

Managing director of Alexander Forbes, Femi Oyetunji, described it as “nothing short of catastrophic.”

He was speaking at
the press briefing held in Lagos yesterday to herald the ninth Nigerian
Investment Banking League (NIBL) upcoming awards ceremony, which is
scheduled to hold on 9th December, 2010, in Lagos.

Alexander Forbes is
acting as independent auditor of the results to ensure transparency and
credibility. The independent auditors are to thoroughly scrutinise the
process of scoring as well as the scoring criteria.

Managing director
and chief executive officer of SBA Research, Segun Akande, said the
last two years have been difficult for the financial markets.

“The global
recession has had a fairly devastating effect on the Nigerian capital
market,” he said. He, however, admitted that despite the strenuous
financial terrain, some companies have still managed to excel.
“Therefore, it would be a gross injustice not to reward those companies
with the credit and awards they deserve.”

Mr. Akande said
that NIBL has set up a scoring committee composed of senior
stakeholders in the investment banking sector, who themselves are
competing for the various award categories. He said that this would
help reduce any incidence of corruption in the scoring process.

He also said that
the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is actively involved in
the whole process, as every transaction uploaded by the investment
banks would be verified by SEC before further scoring would proceed.

NIBL aims at
achieving complete transparency and total credibility by tallying up
the scores and sending the results to the independent auditor for
verification and confirmation. Mr. Akande explained that due to
financial constraints and a low volume of transactions in the last
year, the categories for this year’s award would be reduced to four, as
against eight categories in recent years.

The awards
categories are Best Equity House, Best Mergers & Acquisition, Best
Debt House, and Best Investment Bank 2009. Another category of Best
Equity Private Equity Deal would be personally given to the awardees
after the ceremony, due to financial constraints.

Biremo, senior
manager, sales & marketing, SBA Interactive Data, explained that in
order to accommodate the vagaries of the current financial crisis, the
minimum transaction value for scoring has been reduced to N1billion, as
against N5billion in recent years.

Previous winners of the Best Investment Bank include BGL Plc, Stanbic IBTC, and in 2009, Chapel Hill Denham Group.

Established in
2000, the NIBL was set up by SBA Research to create more transparency,
efficiency, and healthy competition in the capital markets. It has
become the parameter used by the Nigerian capital market to measure the
performance of domestic issuing houses in the country.