Jumia Clarifies New York Listing

Jumia Clarifies New York Listing

Nosa Alekhuogie
Jumia Technologies has clarified its recent listing on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), while assuring its global customers, Nigerians inclusive of better services to come.

According to e-Commerce company, its major drive in joining the New York Stock Exchange was also to showcase the digital innovation happening in Africa.
The Chief Financial Officer, Jumia Nigeria, Ernest Eguasa, made the clarification while addressing journalists at its headquarters in Lagos recently.

He explained that the company decided to settle for the NYSE because investors have a marketplace and tech focus in New York than in any other place.

He said: “We contemplated several venues, ultimately, we met a lot of investors and New York seemed the more natural place given the number of investors familiar with the business model.
“We made a logical choice as this is the largest stock exchange in the world; many technology companies are listed on the NYSE (Alibaba, Twitter, Snap.).

“The NYSE listing shows that innovation is happening in the African continent – it shows an innovative, dynamic and modern Africa.”
He further explained the Initial Public Offering (IPO), stating that the move was about creating more trust and raising the public profile to help with the business.

According to him, the company has been private for seven
years, and “we see a lot of positive aspects to being public.”
“Raising the public profile is going to help us bring more sellers to Jumia. Many sellers or partners are yet to know about us, and once they do, we hope they will be keen to work with us.

“This IPO is all primary, and is about providing the resources to the company and not to selling shareholders.
“We also hope this will help us build even more trust with consumers, in particular, those who are still not comfortable with e-commerce, may now see us as an established company and, we hope this will help our growth and consumer adoption,” he added.

Also, we are keeping our fingers crossed that the listing will help us with talent recruitment, retention, as we aim to attract more attention from top talents,” Eguasa added.
The CFO also noted that although the two CEOs are french, Jumia’s management and staff in most countries are largely local, including country heads.

Speaking further, he said; “It is important to note that we directly employ more than 5,000 people in Africa and believe that our business has a significant indirect impact on job creation across the continent.
“Nigeria is our headquarters in Africa, and our incorporation in Germany, is a way to get foreign investors excited to send funds to Africa to boost our operations.”

Shedding more light on Investors, Eguasa explained that Jumia also has international shareholders, like many other companies and are bringing investors to the African tech scene and building the economy and talent there.
“Though initially funded by German investors in 2012, we got one of our main shareholders, MTN in South Africa. It is amazing that international investors are bringing positive news to the whole tech scene in Africa and for many more start-up companies after us. Now that we are public, any African investor is welcome to invest in Jumia,” he said.

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