eBusiness Weekly
Trades in Colcom and NicozDiamond to complete the respective takeovers by Innscor and FML saw the value of trades on the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange nearly reach $700 million in 2017.
As reported last week in Business Weekly, the ZSE had already achieved its best outcome since dollarisation, with trading in November alone having exceeded the whole of 2016.
The value of trades by the close of trading on December 29 amounted to $694,9 million, with $75,35 million shares changing hands in December, which was also a post-dollarisation record for the month.
The volume of shares traded in the year amount to 3,534 billion, with December’s volume also a record 879,7 million for the month.
Innscor’s takeover and de-listing of Colcom saw 32,97 million shares traded last Thursday at a price of 55 cents a share in a deal valued at $18,13 million, while the 177,2 million NicozDiamond shares sold to NSSA by ZHL on December 19 passed to FML on the final day of trading. The other major deal in December was NSSA’s sale of 111,1 million FMP shares to FML.
The loss of Colcom also saw the ZSE number of listed companies drop to 60, with 57 active counters and three on suspension (CFI, Cottco and PG Industries).
The ZSE suspended CFI on Tuesday for three months for failure to comply with the free float requirement, the absence of a substantive executive and lack of independent directors.
Meanwhile, the ZSE introduced and All Share and Top 10 index on Tuesday, the first day of trading in 2018, while continuing to run the old Industrials and Minings measures.
The ZSE weakened in the first few days of trading as the usual year end ramp up in prices by fund managers saw heavyweights Delta, Econet and Old Mutual.
Delta closed 12c (or 8,1 percent) higher at 160c on volume of a mere 5 000 shares, Econet rose 10c (or 11,7 percent) to 95c with 8 502 shares traded, while Old Mutual leaped 80c (or 17,4 percent) to 540c with a respectable 38 247 shares changing hands. Delta dropped 10c on January 3 and closed at 155c yesterday, Econet closed at 90c while Old Mutual ended at 460c.
Falgold failed to react to its final results remaining at 2,2 cents as did Ariston at 1,7 cents. Despite its best results and highest volumes in years, Willdale eased back 0,02 cents to 0,73 cents.
