Nigeria

With issuance on the primary market remaining far below the levels seen during the heydays of the mid2000s, attracting new supply will be key if the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) is to meet its goal of a $1trn market capitalisation by 2016 – up from N12.14trn ($74.05bn) in early April 2015.

Fresh from a rebasing exercise in April 2014 that boosted 2013 GDP by 89% to $509.97bn, Nigeria now ranks not only as Africa’s most populous country, but also its largest economy. It has long played an outsized regional role, making up 76% of West Africa’s GDP and around 60% of its population. Despite concerns linked to short-term and cyclical risks, including unequal...

With regulatory reforms threatening to curb banks’ traditional sources of profit, lenders will need to create risk assets to maintain and expand their margins. Chief among these will be lending to retail customers and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), which carry significantly higher interest rates than the limited and heavily banked blue-chip corporate market....

Despite a housing gap estimated at 17m units, the provision of affordable long-term financing has remained virtually non-existent. By 2013 there were a mere 20,000 mortgages outstanding, according to the Ministry of Finance (MoF), at best-case interest rates of 19% over 10 years. In parallel to government efforts to promote the construction of more affordable housing,...