African Thoughts: April 28, 2014

Nigeria:

It was a very active week in Lagos even though it was a short one due to the Easter celebrations with total turnover increasing to $149.41. There were a number of large crosses in the likes of FBNH, Zenith and Nestle throughout the week which helped drive activity. Banking stocks managed to close the week higher with good performances from Stanbic IBTC (+7.68%), FBNH (+7.50%) and Skye (+6.63%). Consumers however came under a bit of pressure with the Index falling -0.93%. Both NB and Zenith released Q1 2014 results last week with PAT increasing +16.27% and +0.85% respectively. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has advised the federal government to extend the period for winding down the Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON).

Kenya:

The market managed to close in positive territory with the NSE 20 Index gaining 0.7% thanks to robust foreign buying while turnover was also very solid and increased 43.5% from the previous week to $41.8m. Equity Bank was the main driver behind the market’s performance with the counter gaining 10.7% for the week to close at KES 36.25 on foreign buying. Kenya Commercial Bank also had a very good week and managed to gain 5.29% to close at KES 49.75. There was some profit taking in Safcom after a very good run with the telco falling -1.13% to close at KES 13.05. Equity Bank announced that they will issue 300,000 Near Field Communication enabled smart phones free of charge to retailers around the country from next month.

Zimbabwe:

It was a much better week in Harare in terms of activity as turnover increased 68.34% to $18.07m thanks largely to a big cross in Seedco whereby the buyer was foreign. Delta and Econet were unfortunately rather quiet. Another positive was the fact that the market managed to close in positive territory with the Industrial Index gaining +3.40% with Delta (+5.71%), Innscor (+5.06%) and Econet (+3.39%) driving the market higher. It was rather quiet on the news front in Zim last week.

Mauritius:

The market managed to close the week higher in Port Louis with the Sem-7 gaining 0.56% with MCB gaining 1.15% to close at Ms 218.50 (new all-time high) while banking counterpart SBM closed the week at Ms 1.04 (+1.0%). MCB completely dominated activity and accounted for 47% of turnover while SBM accounted for 31%. Hotel stocks closed the week lower with NMH falling -0.3% while LUX fell -0.7%.