African Thoughts: October 12, 2015


Nigeria:

It was an extremely dull week from an activity point of view in Lagos as turnover fell -14.03% to $60.79m with a few crosses in the likes Zenith, GTB and Dangote Cement trying to get things going. The market came under some pressure with the ASI falling -1.38% thanks mostly to consumers (-3.34%) as UACN (-8.30%) and Cadbury (-7.62%) were major drags on the sector. Banks (-1.86%) also closed the week lower thanks to GTB (-2.95%) and Zenith (-2.49%). Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo announced on Tuesday that all government Ministries, Departments and Agencies would be expected to cut costs under the 2016 budget. He said this was necessary in order to control expenditure of the Federal Government, which he said was too high.

Kenya:

It was a rather dire week in terms of turnover in Nairobi as total value traded fell -18% to $28.6m. Foreign investors remained net buyers for the seventh consecutive week with net inflows amounting to $1.3m (the lowest in several weeks) and accounted for 82.7% of activity. KNCB was the most active counter over the course of the week, but recorded net foreign outflows ($791k). Safcom on the other hand recorded the highest net foreign inflows (1.1m). EABL continued to fall (third straight week) and closed the week down -5.1% and closed at KES 260 (low for the year). BATK was another counter that came under pressure from foreign sellers, closing down -6.5%.

Zimbabwe:

It was a much better week in Harare in terms of activity with turnover increasing +138% to $4.7m with Econet (45%), Innscor (18%), Delta (13%) dominating proceedings. The market managed to close the week unchanged with the YTD loss standing at -19.25%. There were some good performances in the likes of CBZ (+11.11%) and Seedco (+0.20%) while Delta (-0.31%) and Econet (-0.04%) closed the week lower. Delta released their second quarter trading update stating that revenues for the quarter were down -6%.

Mauritius:

A rather active week in Port Louis as turnover amounted to a pleasing $12.5m with most of the action centered on MCBG (60.5%). Foreign investors remained net sellers in the likes of MCBG and SBMH. The market closed the week lower with the Semdex falling -1.0%. Banking stocks ended the week mixed with MCBG gaining +0.24% while SBMH fell -3.5%. Hoteliers ended the week lower with NMH (-1.9%), LUX (-1.6%) and SUN (-0.8%) all coming under pressure.

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