🎧 Capital Markets Africa Weekly News Roundup, 20th October 2023
Welcome to the Capital Markets Africa weekly news roundup. Your source for the latest happenings across the listed African equities space.
We kick things off in Uganda where the country's second largest telecoms business, Airtel Uganda, has pushed back the date for the offer period of its planned IPO. The offer period was due to end last Friday but has now been extended by two weeks. In August, Airtel Uganda announced plans to list 20% of the company on the Uganda Securities Exchange. The firm hopes to raise over US$200 million.
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Osino Resources has completed a CAD$2.7 million bookbuild. The company plans to use the funds for exploration and development of its Twin Palms Gold Project in Namibia. Osino is a Canadian miner with a secondary listing on the Namibian Stock Exchange. It has interests in gold and lithium in the country. Company CEO Heye Daun said in a statement that the business plans to tap Namibian pension funds for follow-on financing. Book building is the process by which an underwriter attempts to determine the price at which an IPO will be offered.
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To Egypt where the CEO of Integrated Diagnostics Holdings Plc, a consumer healthcare company, has increased her stake in the business by 1.1 million additional shares. This is in addition to the 150,000 shares she purchased earlier this year. The latest transaction takes Hend El Sherbini's stake in IDH to 26.92%, worth about US$69 million. This makes her the largest single shareholder in the business. IDH operates over 500 branches in the Middle East, and parts of West and North Africa. It has operations in countries such as Egypt, Jordan, Sudan, and Nigeria. When the company reported its half-year earnings back in August, it saw a 40% rise in what it calls “conventional earnings” (that is, earnings generated by activity unrelated to Covid). Net profit however was down 52%. IDH is dual-listed in Cairo and London and its share price on the Egyptian Stock Exchange has seen a 21% drop since the start of the year.
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Now finally, to the just ended FT Africa Summit in London where I met Mr. Kakenenwa Muyangwa. He's the board chair of ZCCM Investments Holdings, a Zambian state-owned investment holding company. In a panel discussion on critical minerals, Mr Muyangwa spoke about the need for better regional integration in relation to critical mineral mining. Later on, I asked him to share more of his thoughts.
Join us again next Friday on the Capital Markets Africa Weekly News Roundup!
© Capital Markets Africa, 2023
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