Head of Research at Databank, Alex Boahen, has urged companies that have been delisted by the Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE) to work hard to be listed again.

He said the companies must act to address the concerns that led to their delisting.

He said “The reason why investors invest in companies is that they want the companies to be profitable so that they can pay dividends to them.

“They want their share prices to appreciate the market so that they can make capital gains when they sell their stock.

“But if you look at it, recently these companies have failed to deliver both dividends and also share price appreciation, and it stands to reason that when it gets to a point, it’s probably in the interest of the shareholder and investor community for these companies to go off the market so that they can leave the public spotlight and then they can re-strategize and when things improve they can always come back and apply and list on the market again.”

Alex Boahen also advised other businesses to consider listing on the Ghana Alternative Market, GAX, to avoid the strict compliance standards of the main market.

“I’ve always seen the call encouraging companies to list on the market as a brilliant idea. I think it needs to be pushed more so that at least we can get a lot more SMEs coming unto the market, especially the GAX.

“The rules on the GAX market is a bit more relaxed than on the main market because even in terms of financial reporting the GAX companies do their reporting twice in a year while on the main market, you report four times in a year. So I will advise that some of these companies can repackage themselves and list on the GAX if possible.”