News and developments on African capital markets: African securities, African stock exchanges, African equities, African bonds, African private equity/venture capital, and African social impact investment. Twitter @africancapital, LinkedIn African Securities Exchanges group.
RisCura’s annual Bright Africa report into African securities exchanges is out and highly-recommended. Key challenge to investors, African stock exchange operators and regulators remain: liquidity, free float and cost of trading. Broker commissions are high, but with low trading volumes they need incentives to change.
There are 108 African companies listed or trading on the London Stock Exchange with total market capitalization of over $200 billion ($271bn). In the last 10 years they have raised more than $16 bn on London’s markets.
Leaders and movers of African capital markets are heading to Casablanca for the 6th Building African Financial Markets (BAFM) capacity-building seminar on 18-19 May, organized by Casablanca Stock Exchange with the African Securities Exchanges Association.
Developing Africa’s securities exchanges is critical for the continent’s development, with capital markets standing between huge demand for capital for growth and huge demand to invest. The key issues are on the agenda of The 15th Annual African Securities Exchange Association conference (in Marrakesh, Morocco), hosted by Casablanca Stock Exchange, 12-13 December.
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.