Movers & Shakers: January 25, 2013

Botswana: DCI +0.89%, USD 644k

A mildly interesting day in Botswana as the bulk of the volume evenly split amongst Choppies, FNBB and Letshego while Furnmart, G4S and Stanchart also saw some reasonable action. FNBB was the most active name and closed at 283t on good volume.

Egypt: Closed for the day.

Kenya: NSE 20 -0.12%, USD 2.8m

Equity turnover fell a further 18.7% during the session. Local investor participation declined from 64% to 57.9% in the previous session. The NSE 20 index was broadly unchanged for the day with most of the leading movers making marginal gains. Safaricom was the day’s top mover accounting for 21% of volumes along with Equity Bank at 15%. Foreign investors led buying interest, increasing buying participation from 52.8% to 62.9%. The leading gainers and losers were generally on thin volumes. City Trust, which will be the holding company of I&M Bank, stabilized at KES 454, while notching up just 0.4% after two volatile sessions. At the close of trading, Centum gave notice that it had acquired a 45% stake of micro lender Platcorp Holdings through a consortium in which it has a 79% shareholding. The price of the transaction was not disclosed. Platcorp is the group holding company of Platinum Credit which operates in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania. It is a non-banking, non-deposit taking micro lender for emergency loans. The investment firm was generally quiet during the day.

Mauritius: Semdex +0.09%, USD 318k

An extremely slow and dull session in Port Louis with just $318k changing hands while both the Semdex and Sem-7 inched up slightly. The only name to move on the Sem-7 was ENL Land which gained 51bps to close at Rs39.40 while every other name ended the session unchanged. All hotels closed unchanged while Air Mauritius continues to rally, closing up 2.36% at Rs13.00.

Nigeria: ASI +0.44%, USD 38.89m

Another high volume day in Nigeria as block trades yet again bump turnover up. Local profit taking seems to be the main driver behind these block trades. The banking sector recovered impressively (BNK10 +2.21%) as the buying frenzy started again with only ETI closing down. Diamond (+8.77%, N6.70) was the biggest outperformer while UBA, Zenith, Access, Fidelity and Skye all performed well. GTB saw some massive action and contributed more than 25% of the days vols, mostly thanks to a large cross just before the close. In the consumers, NB saw a large cross yet the name closed down 25bps at N153.60 on good volume while Guinness closed unchanged at N285 on good volume. Cadbury and Flourmills closed up impressively at N33.75 (+3.91%) and N73.49 (+4.99%) respectively.

South Africa: Top 40 -0.21%, USD 1.32bn

A much quieter day in Johannesburg with both the Alsi and the Top 40 closing down marginally. Gold and Resource stocks were the biggest fallers. At the time of writing, the ZAR was at 8.97, 12.07 and 14.17 vs the USD, EUR and GBP respectively.

Zambia: LuSE unchanged, USD 2k

Another dire day in a market that just seems to get more and more illiquid as just $2k traded. Not surprisingly, there was nothing of note to comment on in the market.

Zimbabwe: Industrials +0.03%, Mining unch, USD 1.08m

Very dull day in Harare yet the equities market closed the week higher recording its fourth consecutive gain. The industrial index increased marginally after gains in Meikles, BAT and Innscor were watered down by losses in RTG, Lifestyle and Padenga. Week on week the industrial index is 1.67% or 2.76points higher. Trading activity however slumped as volumes dropped 89% to a mere 1.08m shares while foreign participation in Econet boosted value traded 38% to $1.51m. Econet alone accounted for 91% or $1.368m of value traded of foreign purchases were $1.334m. Cigarette manufacturer, BAT which has managed to navigate the stormy waters of espionage allegations rose a further 2.22% to 460c, MEIKLES rose 2.61% to 23.6c as the market waits patiently for more details on its mining ventures and INNSCOR rose by 0.61% to 82c albeit on paltry volumes. AFRE put on another 8.33% to 6.50c on resurgent demand as Truworths added 7.69% to 2.8c. Trading in the negative was hotel group RTG which slipped 23.53% to 1.3c, Padenga eased 2.13% to 4.6c while Lifestyle Holdings pared 20% to 0.4c as the market seems to disapprove the registration of a Mauritius based company TN Luxaire Holdings meant to facilitate fundraising for the group. Masimba Holdings formerly M&R remained offers only at 3c following the departure of former CEO Stewart Mangoma who will be replaced by former CEO and shareholder Canada Malunga. The mining index was flat at 77.41 points, despite BINDURA gaining 0.20 cents to settle at 2.20 cents. FALGOLD, HWANGE and RIOZIM were unchanged at the previous trading level. The mining index was up 4.28 points (5.85%) compared to the week ending 18 January 2013.

African Currencies