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.
A round-up of recent African IPOs and other listings, many over-subscribed, shows demand and innovation – Namibia scored its first SPAC and Mauritius listed GDRs.
The Namibian Stock Exchange and the central Bank of Namibia are working together to create a central securities depository (CSD) for equities, bonds and bills traded. They are waiting for laws and regulations to be passed to get the new system operational.
The International Finance Corporation continues its programme of helping develop African debt markets by launching the first bond by a non-resident issuer in Namibia. It raised NAD 180 million (about $12m) which it will use for private sector development.
All 4 Namibian stockbrokers have switched their front-end links into the local bourse to the trading solutions supplied by IRESS, a leading global supplier of innovative securities, financial markets and wealth management technology.
Tanzania’s Dar es Salaam Stock Exchange topped the performance list for the 12 months to 31 Jan in USD, managing a 27% climb and beating the S&P 500 index which rose 11.9%.
Malawi came out as Africa’s top-performing exchange to USD-based investors over 2013 with a strong 62.4% return. Eight out of 13 African exchanges beat the S&P 500.
Former Namibian Minister of Finance Helmut Angula is heading plans to establish a second securities exchange, the Namibia Financial Exchange (NamFin-X), which received its licence to operate in September 2012.
Africa’s 24 stock markets should learn to work together better if they are to seize high levels of investor interest, said Nicky Newton-King, CEO of South Africa’s JSE Ltd. She told an interviewer that plumbing, – technology and other links between exchanges and clearing and settlement – were more likely routes to more liquidity than trying to create a single exchange.
A new CEO will start at the Namibian Stock Exchange on 1 January 2013. Sebby Kankondi, Chairman of the NSX, has announced that the Board of the NSX has appointed Tiaan Bazuin. He replaces John Mandy, who has already reached retirement age.