Barely one week after listing its shares on the prestigious New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), the Chief Executive Officer, Jumia Nigeria, Ms Juliet Anammah, has opened up on the imports of the feat.
In a press conference in Lagos, she averred that the deal amongst others is a demonstration of “digital innovation happening in Africa, and opportunities from the region in terms of technology and eCommerce to the world”.
Jumia, with its headquarters in Nigeria, had on Friday April 12, 2019, listed its shares on the NYSE, and traded at $14.50 under ticker symbol JMIA. During the listing, Jumia offered 13,500,000 American Depository Shares representing 27,000,000 Ordinary Shares.
According to her, build up to the successful listing saw Jumia meeting and consulting with lot of investors, but New York seemed the more natural place given the number of investors familiar with the business model.
Explaining more on why New York was the choice for Jumia for now, Ms Anammah stressed that more investors have a marketplace and tech focus in New York than in any other place, noting that “We made a logical choice. This is the largest stock exchange in the world; many technology companies are listed on the NYSE (Alibaba, Twitter, Snap.).”
She recalled that the Initial Public Offering (IPO) become an important move having been private for seven years, and the management sees a lot of positive aspects to being public.
She was upbeat that the listing will further boost visibility and deepen brand trust plus raising the public profile to help with the business even by attracting more sellers to Jumia.
