The Securities and Exchange Commission has endorsed Conoil stocks for investors wishing to engage in margin lending activities.
The margin lending list, as released by SEC, is based on the Commission’s rules and guidelines, which it instituted with a view to curbing excessive speculative activities of investors.
The list is comprised of securities whose shares have been adjudged by the Commission to have enough liquidity and fundamental strengths to serve as margin securities.
A statement by Conoil on Thursday noted that the company is one of the foremost petroleum products marketing company, famous for its high performance and sustained impressive profitability over the years and with record of robust returns on investment.
The company, with an expansive storage capacity and retail network, is the country’s leading service provider in the areas of aviation fuel, lubricants and liquefied petroleum gas.
SEC recently released the list of quoted companies whose shares could be used in margin lending and transactions, with a caution that only investors and persons with adequate knowledge of margin lending should engage in it.
Apart from Conoil, the list has other stocks such as Nigerian Breweries Plc, Cadbury Nigeria Plc, Guinness Nigeria Plc, Julius Berger Nigeria Plc, UACN Property Development Company Plc, Okomu Oil Palm Plc, PZ Cussons Nigeria Plc, Unilever Nigeria Plc, Flour Mills of Nigeria Plc and Ashaka Cement Plc.
Others are International Breweries Plc, Lafarge Cement WAPCO Nigeria Plc, National Salt Company of Nigeria Plc, Nestle Nigeria Plc, Nigerian Aviation Handling Company Plc, Honeywell Flour Mills Plc and Dangote Cement Plc.
SEC had stated that the margin list was part of its efforts to forestall the untoward events that contributed to the previous market decline.
It noted that the regulation of margin lending would ensure that the market was founded on the principles of risk-based supervision.
Investors were been urged investors to check the margin list on the SEC website before entering into margin lending arrangement with a broker or a bank.
It would be recalled that the unprecedented stock market decline in 2008 was fuelled by excessive speculative activities and unsupervised use of margin loans to fund investment in listed equities among other factors