African Thoughts: March 20, 2017

Nigeria:

Nigeria remains in a poor way and this is reflected in the lack of interest and activity on the NSE. The ASI did gain 1.64% for the week with the Banks up 2.36% while the Consumers ended the week 2bps in the red. Gainers amongst the banks included Diamond Bank (N0.94, +16.05%), UBA (N5.50, +9.56%), Guaranty (N26.30, +7.35%) and FCMB (N1.25, +4.17%). Volumes remain at historical lows with just the odd cross going through which gives the daily turnover some measure of respectability. Although even that doesn’t save the days when only $2m changes hands.

Kenya:

The Kenyan bourse had a massive session on Wednesday with more than $17m changing hands on the day. The rest of the week was largely quiet as we saw the NSE 20 close up 70bps for the week. As has been the case in recent months the turnover charts were heavily dominated by Safcom. The telco bounced back after a soft couple of weeks to close up 6.21% at KES17.95. The other stock to see some nice crossing was EABL which closed up 2.35% at KES218.00. The banks were also pretty strong – Equity Bank gained 6.48% to KES28.75 while KNCB rose by 1.69% to KES30.00. During the week we saw Equity Bank release FY16 results.

Zimbabwe:

In Zimbabwe, the Industrials gained 1.56% mostly thanks to a spectacular rebound in Econet which rose by 14.24% to 15c. The telco’s LA’s ended trading today ahead of the rights offer close. Delta also increased by a solid 2.38% to close at 86c thanks to some increasing demand on the back of the announcement of a 1c second interim dividend.

Mauritius:

In Port Louis we actually witnessed a relatively active trading week with approximately $6.6m changing hands. The indices were largely unchanged with activity heavily focused on the usual suspects of MCBG (-70bps, Rs225.00) and SBMH (-30bps, Rs7.00). We also saw IBL reach an all-time high of Rs37.90 (+3.6%). There was also an announcement by CIM during the week that the company will sell its Global Business activities for Rs3.2bn.

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