Investors have continued to offload million of shares of isted Nigerian banks despite a plea by the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) and other regulators in the financial sector not to do so, according to the privately-owned Guardian newspaper Monday.
The development came as the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) declared wanted the recently-sacked Chief Executive Officer of Oceanic Bank Plc, Mrs.Cecilia Ibru, and her Intercontinental Bank Plc counterpart, Dr. Erastus Akingbola.
According to the paper, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) is planning to sanction banks that failed to obtain credit report from at least two licensed credit bureaux prior to granting loans.
The Director General/Chief Executive Officer of the NSE, Ndi Okereke-Onyiuke, and other regulators had pleaded with investors not to sell their shares in the banks following the crisis currently rocking the financial sector.
Despite the injection of fresh funds into the affected banks and the attestation by the NSE that the action by the CBN was an indirect way of bailing out the nation’s capital market, investors traded off banks’ shares.
The panic was prompted by the recent removal of the chief executive officers of five banks listed on the floor of the Nigerian Stock Exchange.
Precisely, at the close of transactions on Friday, investors suffered a total loss of 519 billion naira as bank stocks and other blue chip stocks suffered share price depreciations.
Worst hit among the banks whose shares were traded last week were Access Bank Plc, UBA Plc and First City Monument Bank Plc, all of which accounted for 393 million shares, representing 50 per cent of the banking sub-sector’s turnover volume for the week.
With only six stocks enjoying share price appreciation out of over 200 listed companies, the market capitalization which closed the previous Friday at 5.55 trillion naira, closed lower at N5.037 trillion, representing a decline of 519 billion naira, while the All-share Index dropped by 2,263.89 points from 24,237.85 to 21,973.96.