African Thoughts: May 03, 2016


Nigeria:

It was another dreadful week in terms of activity in Lagos with turnover increasing +22.07% to a very disappointing $35.57m as foreign investors remain on the sidelines (for the large part). A few crosses in the likes of GTB, Zenith and NB tried to spur on some activity, but things just could not get going. The market managed to close the week slightly higher with the ASI gaining +0.85%, trimming the YTD loss to -12.50%. Consumer stocks lead the market higher with the sector gaining +4.22% with good performances from NB (+9.64%), Unilever (+4.99%) and PZ (+4.96%). Banking stocks also had a good week with the sector closing +3.26% higher thanks to FBNH (+8.43%), GTB (+5.34%) and Zenith (+4.53%). Companies continued to release first quarter 2016 results last week, but it is hard to gauge market sentiment with regards to the results with volumes being so thin. Pick n Pay stores announced plans to enter Nigeria through a partnership with Lagos based AG Leventis & Company.

Kenya:

It was an extremely dull week from an activity point of view in Nairobi with turnover falling -43.4% to $18.8m as foreign investors turned net sellers to the tune of $457k while their participation reduced to 62%. The market closed the week slightly lower with the NSE 20 Index falling -0.5%, taking the YTD loss to -1.3%. Safcom drove proceedings for the second straight week and accounted for 33.2% of activity, closing the week unchanged at KES 17.10 with net foreign inflows of $1.7m. ARM signed a $140m equity deal and as such was one of the better performers, closing +7.7% higher. Unfortunately the usual market heavyweights were extremely quiet with nothing on the go in KNCB, EQBNK and EABL. Unfortunately with things being so quiet in Nairobi, there is not much to report.

Zimbabwe:

After the usual slow start in Harare we finally saw a return of some form of activity with a large cross in Delta on Friday as over 6m shares changed hands and as such, we saw activity increase by 277% to $5.8m for the week. Unfortunately the rest of the market remains eerily quiet. April's good run continued (albeit on thin volume) with the market gaining +6.52% for the week, taking the monthly gain to +8.34% while trimming the YTD loss to -7.92%. Delta also drove the charge from a performance point of view with the heavyweight gaining +17.79% ahead of results which are due on the 11th of May. There were also good performances from OK (+11.94%) and Innscor (+9.73%). We can only hope that the market can build some momentum on the large Delta cross.

Mauritius:

The market managed to close in positive territory in Port Louis with the Semdex gaining +0.9%, trimming the YTD loss to -1.6%. It was a rather average week from an activity point of view with turnover amounting to $5m, mainly geared towards MCBG as the name accounted for 50.1% of turnover. MCBG had a decent week from a performance point of view thanks to net foreign purchases with the bank gaining +1.6% while SBMH closed the week unchanged. Hoteliers had a decent week with NMH gaining +4.6% while LUX closed +2.1% higher.

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