African Thoughts: April 07, 2014

Nigeria:

It was a very good week in terms of performance in Lagos as the market managed to close in positive territory with the ASI gaining +0.99%. The market was spurred higher by both of the major sectors with the banking sector gaining +5.19% while the consumer sector gained +2.01%. In the consumer space it was Flour Mills (+8.46%) and Nestle (+7.08%) that pushed the sector higher while tier-1 banks Access (+3.49%), GTB (+10.11%) and Zenith (+6.28%) all performed exceptionally well. On the negative side, turnover fell 20% to N21.26 but this was only as a result of fewer block trades going through last week. Diamond Bank Plc Wednesday said it has sought shareholders' approval to raise $550 million additional capital in its quest to raise its tier-2 capital by $750 million.

Kenya:

It was a rather slow week in Nairobi in terms of activity as value traded fell 28.1% to $26.99m which is the lowest weekly turnover since the first week of 2014 as foreigners were very quiet. Safcom was the week’s most active counter as there was the odd cross with the telco gaining 0.8%, recouping some of the previous week’s -2.4% fall. Kenya Commercial Bank witnessed the most foreign inflows with the counter closing flat at KES 46.00 while Safcom saw the most foreign outflows. The Kenya National Bureau of Statistics released inflation figures for March 2014 which saw inflation falling 0.59% to 6.27% y/y. The Ministry of Mining disclosed that it has granted an operating license to Dangote Cement.

Zimbabwe:

It was great to see some interest finally return to the Zimbabwean market with turnover increasing 40.26% to $10.81m with crosses in the heavyweights. The biggest contributors towards turnover came in the form of Delta (40%), Econet (26%) and Innscor (7%). There was also a notable cross in Zimplow of 16m shares at 3c, which was a 20% premium. Another positive was the fact that the market managed to close in positive territory with the Industrial Index gaining +0.24%.

Mauritius:

It was a strong week in Mauritius with the Semdex gaining +1.9% thanks to strong moves in the likes of NMH (+3.0% ) and Lux Islands (+2.4%). MCB finally started trading again after the counter’s suspension due to the name change which is now MCBG and we saw some chunky crosses going through in the bank with heavy foreign participation. MCBG closed the week at Rs215 while SBU closed unchanged at Rs1.06.