Capital market regula-tors have been asked to come up with initiatives that would restore investor confidence to the equities market.According to stake-holders, this is necessary in view of the significant losses recorded by investors in the market this year.The Chief Executive Officer, PEARL Awards Nigeria, Mr. Tayo Orekoya, who made this call at a press briefing on Friday, noted that the regulators had a lot of work to do to encourage investors to come back to the market.Speaking on the forthcoming 2011 PEARL Awards, Orekoya noted that the capital market remained a major institution capable of providing funding platform to tackle the infrastructural challenges facing the country.He added that it was, therefore, important that all efforts were made to ensure that the market thrived once again."I wish to reiterate the need for concerted and well focused regulatory initiatives that would speedily restore sanity, renew investor confidence, promote market stability and return the stock market to the path of growth and development," he stated.Orekoya also stressed the need for regulators to consider incentives that will attract new listings into the market, especially listing by companies in the telecommunication and oil and gas sectors.He said, "It is necessary to provide the necessary environment for the listing of telecoms and oil & gas companies. The regulatory authorities should also be more proactive, focused and watch their utterances in other to attract these firms, as market is information-driven."They should also provide incentives to attract these companies to the stock exchange. They may consider things, like tax incentives so that other companies may follow suit."Commenting further on the award, he said, "We are not unaware of the downturn in the capital market in the last few years and the concerted efforts being made by regulatory authorities to stabilise the market and return it to the path of sustainable growth."And so, on our own part, we are giving out awards to quoted companies on the NSE, which have tried to stay afloat and recorded impressive performance, despite the harsh operating environment."He said this years award winners would be determined, using 10 operational and stock performance indices, including turnover growth, return on equity, earnings yield, share price appreciation, stock activity and dividend cover."As usual, in other to ensure fairness, objectivity and authenticity in its assessment, the Research and Collation Sub-committee sourced the required data from the annual reports of quoted companies duly filed with the NSEs daily official lists and the weekly reports for the 52 weeks in the year under consideration," he said.He added that the ceremony, scheduled to take place towards the end of the month, was also reserved to honour companies with the highest aggregate score in the market excellence.
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