Can the board of directors increase firm value? Evidence from the Nigerian Exchange Group

This article examines the impact of board of directors on the value of companies listed on the Nigerian Exchange Group. Board of directors refers to board independence, board size, board composition, and board gender; while firm value is Tobin's Q. Data is extracted from the annual reports and accounts of 116 companies out of 157 companies listed on the trading floor of the Nigeria Exchange Group (accounting for 74%). 39 companies have been delisted due to technical reasons cited by the Nigerian Exchange Group, including restructuring, poor listing standards, and missing regulatory filings. The results cover a period of 10 years (2012-2021) and the analysis includes descriptive statistics, correlation and regression while taking into account tests such as normality, linearity, multicollinearity, heteroscedasticity (homogeneity), autocorrelation (serial independence). The test results found that they are all within the threshold and therefore passed the tests. However, it is only the composition and the diversity of the board gender that have significant impact on the value of the company. Therefore, we conclude that the composition and diversity of directors are the determinants of the value of the company. Given these results, we recommend that regulators and owners pay careful attention to board formation and the inclusion of women on boards. This article has some flaws like all empirical studies. Due to the lack of information, 39 companies were excluded, only 116 companies were included in the survey. It is also possible that other factors have impacts on the value of the company