Brainworks to list on ZSE within a year

06 Oct, 2017 - 00:10 0 Views
Brainworks to list on ZSE within a year

eBusiness Weekly

Editor
Brainworks Limited says it is currently in talks over a secondary listing on the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange, which the investment holding company is targeting to complete within the next twelve months. This comes as Brainworks is set to list on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange next Friday (October 13).

Brainworks has subsidiaries in the Real Estate (Dawn Properties), Hospitality (African Sun), Logistics (FML) and Financial Services (GetSure, GetBucks and GetCash) sector. Chief executive Bretts Child told Business Weekly that discussions with the ZSE started early this year and were likely to be concluded within the next 12 months.

“The exploratory discussions are ongoing and all indications are positive. We are targeting a ZSE secondary listing to enable local investors to participate in our assets. We made a commitment to some of the stakeholders that we will list on the ZSE and we want to do that.” At present the group has no plans to delist both African Sun and Dawn Properties.

“Delisting the two counters, which are very tightly held, is not the agenda. What’s on the agenda is to grow the two businesses and to push up the profitability levels.”

He said African Sun had returned to profit and currently significantly ahead of last year while Dawn, even though it was operating in a tough sector, was expected to close the year in the positive. Child said Brainworks would leverage off the Dawn land bank for low risk property development.

But for a company which rose to prominence playing a leading corporate finance role on the indigenisation transactions in 202-13, is it not it a wonder that it is now majority owned by external shareholders? Child, while noting that the transactions happened before his time, said that the group had all the necessary approvals to be externally owned.

“Despite the fact that we are externally owned, we are working to increase the Zimbabwean shareholder content and the secondary listing will achieve that.” When it was established in 2011, Brainworks was owned 100 percent by George Manyere and Walter Kambwanji, but the shareholding shifted in 2012 to the subsequent structure in 2017 where foreigners now own over 65 percent of the company.

The group says that its main investment case lies in the fact that it offers ground floor access to a recovering emerging market and through the planned listing provides exposure to Zimbabwe based assets without risks associated with direct investment through the ZSE.

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