News and developments on African capital markets, includes: African securities, African stock exchanges/stock markets, African equities, African bonds, African private equity/venture capital, and African social impact investment
Caravan Capital Management, an investment fund based in the USA, aims to invest up to $90 million in African equity frontier markets. The fund has invested in 36 countries considered as frontier markets.
Interest in share offers is high on the Rwanda Stock Exchange, after shares of Bank of Kigali (BK) rose 52% to RWF190 in their first day of trading on 1 September.
A company has been engaged to switch the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange to electronic trading and Cabinet has discussed this and setting up a Central Securities Depository by year-end.
Morocco’s Casablanca Stock Exchange is offering grants to small and medium enterprises to encourage them to raise capital. The first listing of 2011 was 8.7x over-subscribed.
Tullow Oil plc is to start trading on the Ghana Stock Exchange on 27 July after allocating 3,531,546 ordinary shares of 10p each in a successful offer. The company says this is the largest primary share offer completed on the GSE and will more than double the market capitalisation.
The Egyptian Exchange is to introduce new products and trading innovations, including remote orders placed abroad, exchange-traded funds (ETFs), intraday trades and short selling. Mohamed Abdel Salam, chairman of the Exchange, says transparency is up and political uncertainty down in Egypt.
I have the honour to be published on the opinions section of the Royal African Society website and the article can be seen along with their excellent blogs I also reprint the article, which is meant to spark debate, and I welcome your comments – is it time for change and what is the way forward?
The Rwandan Government plans to raise Rwf25 billion ($42.2 million) through the sale of its shares in Bank of Kigali Ltd and telecom company MTN Rwanda in coming months. The bank is Rwanda’s biggest lender by assets. Government will sell a 20% stake and the bank will add a further 25% stake in an Initial Public Offering scheduled for June.
Senegal has successfully re-priced its yield curve by issuing a more liquid 10-year $500 million Eurobond carrying a coupon of 8.75%. The bond was priced at 97.57 when it was bid on 6 May, the equivalent of a yield of 9.125%.
Fee income from investment banking in sub-Saharan Africa more than doubled to US$157 million during Q1 of 2011, compared to same period in 2010. Of this $80 mn (51%) was earned on merger and acquisition (M&A) activity, according to a leaflet and press release from Reuters Deals Intelligence.