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
The Egyptian Exchange (EGX) has approved the listing of the 23rd company on Nilex (the Nile Exchange, its securities market for listing growing medium and small companies.
Today the Nigerian Stock Exchange is to launch its market-making programme. This will be a hybrid process, with market makers offering 2-way (buy-sell) price quotes in selected securities and a continuation of the current process in which licensed broker/dealers of the NSE submit orders.
Rwanda’s Savings and Credit Cooperatives (known as SACCOs) are being encouraged to take more interest in investing into the capital market including bonds and equities. They are estimated to hold deposits worth over RWF15 billion (US$24.7 million).
This morning South Africa’s securities exchange, the JSE Ltd, announced a revised strategy to attract more listings from other African countries, as international interest soars. The JSE is closing its Africa Board and moving the 2 listed companies onto the Main Board or to Alt-X if they are growth companies. The JSE is also stepping up trading in depository receipts (DRs) and offering a broader range of exchange-traded funds and debt instruments.
Tanzanians are to be able to invest in the gems that bear their country’s name, tanzanite. Richland Resources Ltd, listed on the London Stock Exchange’s AIM market says that it plans listing at the Dar es Salaam Stock Exchange by April, according to local press reports.
The number of investors from other East African countries opening trading accounts at Kenya’s Nairobi Stock Exchange is still very small, but has grown more consistently in the last 2 years than other categories of investors.
“Africa reminds me of China back in 1999. If you missed China then, don’t do that (miss Africa) now,” is how Plamen Monovski, chief investment officer at Russia’s Renaissance Asset Managers, describes prospects for Africa. “It’s the last place in the world that is due for that rapid change and advancement.”
Aureos Africa Health Fund invested $2.5 million in a Kenyan hospital and health insurance company, the Avenue Group, which offers affordable healthcare cover, integrated with quality healthcare provision.
Mark Mobius, veteran emerging markets investor and head of Templeton Emerging Markets, is bullish about the Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE), although it is the worst-performing stock market in sub-Saharan Africa this year, according to the Financial Times.
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.