From Bloomberg

Computer Warehouse Group Plc (CWG), a Nigerian technology company, will seek to raise capital on the country’s stock exchange within 18 months after listing existing stock last week.

CWG needs extra funding to refocus the business toward cloud computing from hardware and software, Chief Executive Officer Austin Okere, 49, said in an interview yesterday at the company’s head office in Lagos, Nigeria’s commercial capital. CWG’s goal is to become the biggest cloud-computing provider in Africa by 2015, he said.

“In twelve to eighteen months time, we will approach the market again,” said Okere. “By that time, we would have crystallized our transformation process.”

The Nigerian Stock Exchange, Africa’s second-largest bourse, is seeking a $1 trillion market capitalization by 2016 by encouraging more technology and telecommunications companies to go public. The exchange is working to make it easier for companies from those industries to list, according to Nigeria’s Information and Communication Technology Minister Omobola Johnson.

“Our role is to be a trailblazer; to go to the exchange and show to people the value of going to the exchange,” Okere said. “I won’t be surprised if this now opens the path for many more IT companies to come and list.” CWG plans to sell shares on the U.S. technology-dominated exchange Nasdaq in the longer term, he said.

Written by Yinka Ibukun & Emele Onu/Read more at Bloomberg.