Nigeria’s Securities and Exchange Commission, SEC, has proposed changes to the seven rules governing capital market activities.
Particularly, the SEC has proposed an amendment to filing and processing fee for all categories at 900 percent increase to N50,000 from N5,000.
The SEC document, which exposed a proposal on amendment to filing and processing fee for all categories noted a 900 percent increase in filing fees to N50,000 from the current fees of N5,000 for filing.
The proposal published in a document on the apex regulators website, dated 14/03/2017 and titled “Proposed new rules and sundry amendments to SEC rules” also include N200,000 as fees for processing under all categories, noting non-availability of current processing fees.
The SEC said it proposed amendment on registration fees for several functions of capital market operators ranging from N50,000 to N1,000,000 depending on the type of functions in order to categorise market participants by registration threshold.
New rules for Fixed Income and Primary Issuance Fees as well as a proposal for Equity Primary Issuance Fees were also stated, Just as the SEC also proposed sundry amendments to Rule 314- Cost of Issue, Rule 456 (f)- Rules on Obligations of the Custodian of a Collective Investment Scheme, Schedule I of the Commission’s Rules and Regulations-Registration Fees, Minimum Capital Requirements, Securities and Others.
Proposed amendment to Schedule VI-Basis of Computation of Bid and Offer Prices for Collective Investment Schemes was also made as well as proposed amendment to Rule on Trading in Unlisted Securities- Inclusion of Debt Securities
According to the SEC, the Proposed Amendment on the rule on cost of issue, states that “The total cost of issue shall not exceed 2.833 percent for equity and 2.293 percent for bonds of the total gross proceeds excluding underwriting commission and registrars’ fees from the issue or such percentage of the gross total proceeds as the Commission may prescribe from time to time”.
However, the existing rule on cost of issue which states that “The total cost of issue shall not exceed 3.17 percent for equity transactions and 3.9375 percent for bonds of the gross total proceeds, excluding indemnity fee, advertisement, printing and take on fees for registrars, from the issue or such percentage as the Commission may prescribe from time to time”
