The Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE) has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Stanford Seed Transformation Network Ghana (STN). The move, which is expected to deepen capital market participation in the country, is in line with GSE’s strategy to groom and prepare the next pool of companies to list on the Accra bourse.
The MoU seeks to make the exchange’s markets – the Main Market, the Ghana Alternative Market (GAX) and its Fixed Income Market (GFIM) available to the over 100 companies, across various sectors, who are members of STN Ghana to support them in raising capital for their business expansion projects.
Speaking at the virtual event, which brought together stakeholders including representatives from the GSE and STN, Managing Director of the Exchange, Ekow Afedzie expressed delight at the development, whilst touting the GAX in particularly, as being important for groups such as STN as it provides the ideal platform for SMEs to raise long term capital to expand and grow.
“The purpose of this MoU is to outline the partnership between the GSE and STN Ghana to assist STN’s members to take advantage of the capital raising and investments available on all of the GSE’s markets,” he said.
As part of the partnership, the exchange will onboard and disseminate relevant market information to interested STN members. It will also undertake complimentary market readiness assessments for interested companies within the STN database as well as initiate joint sponsorship of market awareness and sensitisation workshops for members.
Offering remarks, President of STN Ghana, Linda Ampah also expressed delight at the initiative which offers members a new layer of access to patient capital, which she noted is necessary not only for growth of individual companies but also the wider economy. “This will save the members from using short term loans to finance their long-term growth projects, which often results in high financing costs,” she stated.
The GSE is currently the best performing market in Africa so far this year, with gains of 24.56% on the Main Market.
STN Ghana is a network of graduates of the Stanford Seed Transformation Programme, an initiative of the Stanford Graduate School of Business, which seeks to introduce value enhancing activities for member companies.
