In the 2012-2013 budget read by the finance minister to parliament last Thursday (read that article here), there were many proposals and proposed amendments that were made in the loaded speech.
“… the Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE) has been used by fairly large companies to access capital among other things. The high threshold in the law has denied SMEs the opportunity to access long-term and relatively cheap capital as well as raising their profiles through participation in the NSE. In order to address this problem, I propose to amend the law to create a framework for Growth Enterprise Market Segment within the NSE targeting small and medium enterprises.”
~ An excerpt from the 2012-2013 budget speech
The proposed Growth Enterprise Market Segment, as the minister called it, is intended to facilitate small and medium size businesses have access to capital through the NSE. In this way, small companies would be able to list their shares on the market to enable new investors come in and buy their shares. This would allow them have access to (more) capital that may not be easily available to them (say because of the high interest rates being charged by commercial banks) and save the companies potentially crippling monthly interest payments. The new segment would also spur more competition among the small companies listed on the segment in an attempt to attract and maintain customers and shareholders while giving the NSE in general a shot in the arm.
If implemented, this would make the total number of market segments on the NSE add up to 12 (including the Preference Shares segment).