African Thoughts: September 22, 2014

Nigeria:

Things slowed down in Lagos last week as turnover fell -6.35% to $99.54m while the ASI had a very solid week and managed to gain +0.93%. The performance was driven by consumer stocks with the index gaining +1.23% thanks to strong moves higher in the likes of Nestle (+3.96%), Guinness (+1.02%) and NB (+1.02%) while market heavyweight Dangote Cement managed to close +4.14% higher. Banks came under a bit of pressure and fell -1.26% thanks to UBA (-3.20%), FBNH (-2.07%) and ETI (-1.66%) dragging the sector lower. The Qatar National Bank announced that they had acquired an additional 11% stake in ETI, bringing the total stake to 23.5%. Lafarge Africa Plc, formerly Lafarge Cement Wapco Nigeria Plc has announced the completion of its acquisition of Lafarge groups shareholding in Lafarge South Africa Holdings (Pty) Limited, United Cement Company of Nigeria Limited through Egyptian Cement Holding BV, AshakaCem Plc and Atlas Cement Company Limited. The National Bureau of Statistics released CPI figures for August showing an increase, pushing the inflation rate to 8.5%.

Kenya:

It was a good week in Nairobi as the NSE 20 Index managed to gain an impressive +2.67% and close at a new high for the year of 5,307.52 as local investor demand (58% of activity) drove proceedings while foreign outflows increased 26.8% to $6.6m. Safcom came under the most foreign selling pressure as the telco slid -2.3%. Equity Bank touched an all-time high of KES 59.50 after the Communications Authority of Kenya and the Central Bank of Kenya approved the launch of the banks thin film SIM cards from October. Britam had a rather exceptional week and rallied +22.5% to close at KES 34.00. Kenya Power fell -1.7% on news that Kenya has lost 20.9% of power generated through theft and leakages.

Zimbabwe:

The market came under some pressure last week as the Industrial Index fell -2.25% taking the YTD loss to -3.35% as there was some profit taking in some of the bigger names. Activity slowed down as well with turnover falling -45.28% to $6.55m and could have been worse if it was not for a large cross in Astra as part of the recent offer to minorities by Kansai Plascon, resulting in the group gaining a 75% controlling interest. There was also some activity in the usual suspects Delta (19%), Econet (18%) and Innscor (10%). On the positive side, NatFoods continued to gain after impressive full year numbers and closed the week +12.73% higher.

Mauritius:

It was a strong week from an activity point of view in Port Louis as turnover amounted to $10.6m. This was however mostly centered on the two major banking stocks with MCBG and SBM jointly accounting for 51% of total weekly turnover. SBM is currently going through a restructure exercise whereby shareholders in SBM will become shareholders of SBM Holdings Ltd which will become the holding company of the group. The last trading day for SBM shares/ bonds will be the 25th of September while the first trading day of SBMH shares/ bonds has been scheduled for the 3rd of October.