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
South Africa’s Johannesburg Stock Exchange says that a record number of trades were executed on the exchange today (10 August). The new record is 230,797 trades, valued at more than $4 billion.
Nigerian regulator, the Securities & Exchange Commission, is travelling the country to build education and awareness. SEC Director General Arunma Oteh, SEC Commissioners and senior officials visited Port Harcourt, capital of Rivers State, for 4 days of meetings with stakeholder groups.
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 London Stock Exchange has long been a global centre for capital, particularly where African investments are concerned. It is also the world centre for Eurobonds and several leading African equities are traded in London.
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.
Flows into South African bonds turned positive in the last few days, although money is still being moved out of equities. For much of 2011 (year to date) investors had followed the global trend of less appetite for emerging markets and there have been outflows from South African bonds and equities after 2010 saw record inflows.
The Egyptian Exchange opened today at 10:30am after nearly 2 months, and was immediately swamped with a flood of selling, which saw the index plunge nearly 10% and trading halted a few minutes after the exchange opened. After a regulated halt, the EGX 30 Benchmark slowly edged up before drifting through to close at 5,142.71 after a further 2 hours, down 8.9% on the day.
South Africa’s securities exchange the JSE Limited increased group revenues by 9% to R1,255 million ($178 mn) from R1,156 mn in 2009. Results were driven by strong performances from the cash equity market, information products sales and commodity derivatives.
West Africa’s regional stock market the Bourse Regionale des Valeurs Mobilieres (BRVM) has started trading from a new base in Bamako, Mali, after leaving Cote d’Ivoire because of the political crisis. Trading restarted in the new office on 1 March, but volumes are much lower.
African exchanges could grow dramatically in both market capitalization and turnover in the coming decade, following the explosive trends already charted by the Indian and Chinese markets. This was the view of Sunil Benimadhu, President of the African Stock Exchanges Association (ASEA), speaking at an African investment conference organized by stockbroker Securities Africa in London on 14 March.