African Thoughts: April 03, 2017

Nigeria:

The highlight of the week in Lagos from an activity point of view was an off-market cross in Mobil, whereby 216m shares changed hands at N417.12 ($286m). This was as a result of NIPCO's aquisition of EXXON Mobil's stake in Mobil. Otherwise, it was business as usual with a few crosses in select names dominating proceedings, but nothing to get too overly excited about. The market closed the week slightly higher with the ASI gaining +0.24% as Consumers closed +0.21% higher while Banks fell -1.00%. Big movers in the Consumers included Cadbury (N8.37, +11.75%), 7up (N83.00, +9.20%), Unilever (N35.00, +8.36%) and Okomuoil (N50.00, +4.17%). These were offset by losses in Glaxosmith (N14.00, -3.45%) and NB (N127.00, -2.31%). According to reports, the Nigerian Central Bank says that it will sell FX to banks at N370/ USD.

Kenya:

It was another generally dull week in Kenya with the NSE 20 inching higher by 1.13%. As has been the case in recent weeks, Safcom was the most heavily traded name on the market. The telco started the week soft before stabilizing into the end of week at KES18.00 (-2.44%). The 2 major banking groups also saw a couple of decent crosses and both names were strong; KNCB climbed by 10.3% to KES34.75 while EqBnk also rose by 9.1% to KES33.00. There was not much on the go in EABL although the brewer continues to rise and closed up 2.71% at KES227.00. On Monday the MPC met and (as expected) the interest rate was kept at 10%.

Zimbabwe:

Activity fell off a cliff this week, but this was to be expected after the abnormally large cross in Econet in the week prior. Total value traded for the week amounted to a rather dull $2.94m with most of the action taking place in Simbisa, Innscor, Delta and Econet (+13.19%, 16.05c) as local investors continue to drive demand. On a positive note, the market managed to close the week higher with the Industrial Index gaining +1.37%. On the economic front, tobacco sales have reached $33m since the beginning of the selling season, up from $23m in the same period last year.

Mauritius:

The Mauritian bourse rose by 51bps for the week with decent volumes of USD21.5m despite the week being short after Thursday’s public holiday. The major action was the formalization of NMLH’s take-over. A total of 5.3% of the company’s total shareholding were bought by ENLL and ROGE on the crossing board over 3 days. In normal trading we saw mixed performance in the banks – MCBG dipped by 20bps to Rs223.50 while SBMH rose by 1.4% to Rs7.10. We also saw IBL reach yet another all-time high of Rs39.65. Air Mauritius closed up 1.4% at Rs14.50 on decent volumes after declaring a Rs1.00 dividend.