National Oil Corporation mulls listing on London Stock Exchange

National Oil Petrol Station. (Photo: Courtesy)

The Government is in strategic talks with the UK over possible listing of the National Oil Corporation (Noc) on the London Stock Exchange (LSE).

The move is meant to enable the State-owned oil marketer to raise funds for financing emerging opportunities in the energy sector.

Through the Ministry of Energy and Petroleum, the Government wants to use funding from World Bank to implement the Kenya Technical Assistance Project, whose main aim is to strengthen the capacity of managing the petroleum sector to create wealth.

The ministry yesterday disclosed it was looking for a consultant who would, among other things, help the oil marketer to list on the LSE.

“It is intended part of the proceeds of this credit will be applied to eligible payments under contracts for the provision of consulting services of an advisor to coordinate work stream with LSE towards the public listing of Noc,” said the oil marketer in a press advert.

The consultant will be expected to review the signed memorandum of understanding between LSE and the Energy ministry and drive inter-working groups in the information sharing process in the strategic partnership. The successful consultant will also be tasked with being the Initial Public Offer (IPO) advisor, managing and coordinating the core objectives of the work streams.

Listing of Noc on a closed-ended fund on LSE would enable it to raise equity capital and the proceeds invested in Kenya’s fledgling oil and gas industry.

Additionally, the consultant will be charged with helping the streams develop a strategy for the listing of Noc’s fixed income asset classes on both the LSE and Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE).

Fixed income assets being targeted include Eurobonds, Kenya shilling bonds, green bonds and Islamic bonds (also called sukuk).

Training modules

If the talks are successful, the new development will be a big boost for NSE, which has endured a drought of listings from the privatisation of Government entities.

The last privatisation was from Safaricom Company, which was listed in 2008.

Before the listing, the consultant is expected to come up with training modules for ministry officials and senior management of key parastatals.

“Training will cover, inter alia, disclosure and transparency requirements, corporate governance expectations, understanding of listing rules, roles of independent non-executive directors,” said the ministry.