I recently became friends with a 77-year-old man who lives in my estate. We had lots of talks about the economy and personal finance. I owe it to you to share some of the unusual things he said about the stock market and his experience over decades. But that will be on some other article and I really hope I can get him on a pod.

What’s more interesting was that he told me he attends a monthly meeting that turns out to be that of the Independent Shareholders Association of Nigeria (ISAN). It’s pretty much an association of people who own shares coming together to not just update themselves. It’s shareholders activism. They hear what happens in the corridors of the Nigerian Stock Exchange and even have seats in committees and several Annual General Meetings. I made plans to attend many last Thursdays of the month. Work didn’t give a chance.

On the last Thursday of January, I followed my 77-year-old stock trading neighbor to the monthly meeting of the Independent Shareholders Association at their hall in Ikosi Road, along Oregun Road.

Before the meeting started properly by 4pm, they had an education session starting from an hour earlier. I think it’s a frequent routine to have a session to educate themselves. This session was taken by a popular financial service provider (hint: the second and third letters of the owner’s name is the same as his best friend’s name and it sounds like a social media) and it was rather a product show session where they were explaining their stock management app.

I was the youngest in the room. Everyone there were senior citizens except the guys from the financial services provider.

After the education session, they moved to the meeting proper and it started with a bit of displeasure about the auditing committee. Turns out that shareholder associations being an activism group for shareholders get to be present when audits are going on and the auditing committee from ISAN had neither asked any questions or showed that they knew what they were doing there. The president was not pleased. He further gave capital market updates, talked about AGMs, IPOs etc.

The interesting part of the meeting was when their version of Warren Buffet came up to share market insights. Apparently, he just left NGX chairman’s office and was simultaneously following up with a publicly listed oil company’s board meeting. So, annointing was fresh.

He said we should hold certain stocks tight. He also gave insights on how Trump’s re-election would affect the certain stocks on the NGX. Some of what he told us to expect after that board meeting he was following was in the news by Monday!

They shared food o! The financial services provider shared their own rice and another woman celebrating her birthday shared her own orishirishi. Me I was just like, ah, na so una dey do for here?

To end it, they said they want to see more GenZs like me in the house because we are the future of the stock market. The president kept appealing to members to bring their children. These people are old. The president should be around his 50s and there were almost no persons in their 30s. It looks like a place where GenZs would get more of old knowledge and meet older people who have seen the cream and scream of the market.

Let me drop this now just incase you will not be reading to the end. They are not the only shareholder association. SEC’s website lists about 100 more of this kind. It’s like a multiverse. I don’t know what happens in those 100 other associations if anything happens at all. Maybe they even share more rice than the one in Oregun?

I was in Oregun again on the last Thursday of February. I was not wrong. There was rice again. Yet sadly, I was the youngest person in the room. I was a bit unhappy that GenZ friends I invited did not show up.

On a more serious note, the president and that Warren Buffet man shared a lot of updates. “This bank returned money with interest to people because their rights issue was oversubscribed. This is amazing.” That was the president on some of the updates he shared. The Warren Buffet man is nicknamed Triple A from his initials. He tried to explain what rebasing the economy meant for investors in the stock market. He said shareholders in banks with a balanced portfolio of loans will benefit.

He further mentioned a share to hold for the short term because it is a potential money doubler and a share to sell 50% of if it happens to be in anyone’s portfolio because their rights issue will soon be out. He went on to share that a stock that announced dividends that day might sink a bit but people should not be tempted to sell. He emphasized that people should know when to take profits especially when profits have been exponential.

They added a third stanza to their anthem to honor their members that have passed on. Emphasis was still made that the next generation needs to join to sustain the legacy when they are gone.

Shareholder associations like ISAN also take down the list of stocks you own at the point of registration and ask that you update it regularly so they can inform you when there is a significant update that’s not really open to outsiders. With the form not being automated, I doubt if they do this. It must be that they send WhatsApp messages for every update altogether. Though one can come in and watch, registration at ISAN is ₦2000 and dues are ₦1000 monthly. Shareholder associations are a global practice too with, of course, different names and even different powers. One in Canada dragged Tesla because they were not allowing their staff the right to unionize.

After I collected my rice, I smiled all the way home because of the updates I got. Sincerely, it was because of the updates.

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