* Demutualised Nairobi Securities Exchange expected to list
* Bourse to have 1 bln shillings authorised share capital
By George Obulutsa
NAIROBI, March 4 (Reuters) - Kenya's Nairobi Stock Exchange (NSE) voted to demutualise and is expected to list within two years of the process and have a share capital of 1 billion shillings ($13 million), its chairman said.
Ranked fifth biggest market in Africa by market capitalisation, the NSE is owned by a mutual company formed by the stockbrokers.
"One of the resolutions that was passed by the members was that the Nairobi Stock Exchange be demutualised as soon as the coming into force of the relevant provisions of the law," Eddy Njoroge told a news conference.
"They also resolved that post-demutualisation the new company will have a proposed name of Nairobi Securities Exchange Limited and that the authorised share capital of that exchange will be 1 billion Kenya shillings."
Njoroge said an act of Parliament had already been drafted to address the demutualisation.
The bourse's paid up capital right now is about 200 million shillings.
After demutualisation, its 20 current members will hold an 80 percent shareholding, and 10 percent will go to an investors' compensation fund and the rest to the government.
"We also have a provision that in two years' time, we would want the Nairobi Securities Exchange itself to go through an IPO, and the agreement is that the current members will sell and retain only about 40 percent, and that's post-demutualisation."
Demutualisation is seen as a way of reining in stockbrokers' influence on the bourse's management that has been blamed for slow action whenever brokers flout regulations.
NSE's market capitalisation stood at 936.2 billion shillings at the close of trade on Thursday, slightly lower than Wednesday's close of 936.3 billion shillings.
Its main NSE 20-Share Index closed at 3,675.54 points on Thursday.
The exchange was first formally constituted in 1954, but informal trading in stocks and shares had started in the 1920s. ($1=76.75 Kenyan Shilling)