Barely a week after announcing its plans to reclassify Nigeria as a frontier market effective from September 21 this year, FTSE Russell has listed 31 Nigerian companies in its FTSE Frontier Index Series for upgrade.
The FTSE Frontier Index Series provides benchmarks covering large, medium and small capitalized companies across eligible Frontier markets and is designed to serve as a performance rating yardstick for investors and as a basis for index tracking products.
The global index provider, in its just published September 2026 review of the Frontier Index, listed the affected companies in the Nigerian capital market as including 10 large-cap stocks, namely Aradel Holdings, Dangote Cement, First HoldCo, Guaranty Trust Holding Company (GTCO), and MTN Nigeria Communications.
Others are Nestlé Nigeria, Nigerian Breweries, Presco, Stanbic IBTC Holdings, and Zenith Bank.
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According to the revised reclassification document, while some global stocks were upgraded from ‘Mid Cap’ to ‘Large Cap’ on the Index, FTSE Russell classifies the 10 Nigerian stocks as ‘Newly Eligible’ and are listed as large-cap stocks.
It also listed 21 other firms in the Nigerian Exchange (NGX) in the Mid-cap and Small-cap categories comprised Access Bank, Dangote Sugar, FCMB, Fidelity Bank, Guinness Nigeria, Oando, Okomu Oil Palm, Unilever Nigeria, United Bank for Africa, and Wema Bank
Other entities listed in the Small Cap category by the global index rating agency are Custodian and Allied Insurance, Fidson Healthcare, Julius Berger, National Salt, Nigerian Aviation Handling, Nigerian Exchange Group, Sterling Financial Hold Co, Transnational Corp, U A C Nigeria, United Capital Plc, Vitafoam Nigeria
It would be recalled that FTSE Russell removed Nigeria from Frontier Market to Unclassified status in September 2023 following delays affecting the ability of international institutional investors to repatriate capital and do foreign exchange (FX) transactions.
In October last year, it placed Nigeria on its Watch List for potential reclassification following improvements in foreign exchange liquidity, capital repatriation, and market accessibility; and in April 2026, FTSE Russell disclosed that Nigeria would return to Frontier Market status, setting September 21, 2026, as the effective date.
However, the reclassification plan was later suspended and subjected to a reassessment following Nigeria’s move from a T+2 to T+1 settlement cycle on June 1, 2026.
Consequently, this necessitated extensive engagement involving the NGX Group, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), FTSE Russell, global custodians and international institutional investors.
As a follow up t the discussions, a delegation from NGX Group in July 2026 started discussions directly with the global custodians and global institutional investors to clarify the operations of the T+1 settlement framework.
The parley enabled the NGX Group to provide evidence on the implementation of the new settlement cycle, respond to concerns raised by international investors and custodians and outline measures being taken to ensure that Nigeria’s market infrastructure remains aligned with international best practices.
It was against this backdrop that on August 27, 2026, FTSE Russell confirmed that Nigeria’s reclassification from Unclassified to Frontier Market status would take effect from the opening of trading session on the Nigerian Exchange on September 21, 2026.
