African Thoughts: April 22, 2014

General interest in African markets was low last week as holiday season is in full swing with Easter break and ahead of next week's holidays.

Zimbabwe:

The Industrials Index fell by 4.52% as the pressure on the heavyweight names remains as the YTD for the index is now -18.5%. Delta fell by a further 4.55% to 105c wbhile Econet shed 81bps to 59c. Other large names included Seedco (-13.12%, 66.9c), Innscor (-4.34%, 59.5c), OK Zim (-5.26%, 18c) and BATZ (-4.55%, 1050c). Interestingly, market activity was much improved especially after a good few weeks of very muted trading.

Nigeria:

The ASI gained 92bps last week although volumes were incredibly low. The biggest gainer was the newly listed Seplat which gained 15.76% to N666.79 while there were also notable gains in Forte Oil (+10.14%, N148.99), CAP (+5.96%, N40.00), Access (+6.17%, N8.26), Zenith (+3.69%, N22.50), Wapco (+3.78%, N110.01) and PZ (+4.53%, N33.45). During the week there were results out for PZ (2014 Q3), Forte Oil (2014 Q1) and Transcorp (2014 Q1) while the banks' began their 2014 Q1 announcements, last week we saw GTB, UBA, Fidelity and Stanbic IBTC release their results. Economic data out showed a marginal increase in the CPI for March up to 7.8% (Feb : 7.7%). On other news, Mr Timothy Oguntayo was appointed as the new CEO of Skye Bank and will replace Mr Durosinmi-Etti who will retire on 31 July 2014.

Kenya:

An improvement in foreign appetite for Nairobi stocks led the NASI higher by 2% while the NSE 20 gained 30bps although volumes were lower than normal with the various holidays. KNCB was the most active stock and saw a lot of trading at the KSE 47 level although the stock ended the week unchanged at KES 47.25 while the bulls continue to push EABL higher - the brewer ending the week up 7.6% at KES 284, just 5.3% below the YTD high of KES 300. Safcom ended the week up 3.5% at KES 13.20 after touching an all-time high of KES 13.30. Equity Bank gained 1.6% to KES 32.75 while KNRE saw some chunky crossing as the re-insurer ended the week up 6.1% at KES 19.95.

Mauritius:

Both Mauritian indices fell last week with the Semdex losing 50bps and the Sem-7 shedding 20bps. Banks had a mixed week with sustained demand in MCBG pushing the heavyweight up 50bps to Rs 216.00 while SBM fell by 1% to Rs 1.03. Hotels were also mixed although not much trading at all in the sector. We saw NMH lose 2.2% to Rs87.00 while Sun Resorts and Lux Island Resots gained 50bps and 70bps respectively.