Africa shows interest in Zim

Business Reporter
Fellow African countries are continuing to show keen interest in bringing their investments into Zimbabwe, an investment expert has said. Traditionally, Asian and European countries have been known to invest in Zimbabwe. Imara Zimbabwe executive director Mr Tino Kambasha told the Herald Business that large African capital firms are now showing a lot of interest in the country.
“The South African institutional money is one of the major players on the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange and we are now finding other

African countries looking to this country.
“We have recently seen Choppies Enterprises from Botswana come into Zimbabwe and from what I can see, we are going to see a whole lot more companies following suit whether it is by setting up shop, finding strategic partners or outright acquisitions,” he said.

He added that the fact is that one cannot ignore Zimbabwe and its large consumer base anymore as many equity fund managers are eager to explore opportunities for strong capital growth and high equity yields.

A Kenyan private equity firm, Fanisi Capital, announced recently that it will launch its second fund of US$100 million to be invested in new markets across Southern Africa before the end of next year, a company official said.

Fanisi’s new fund seeks to invest in non East African markets where the fund is focused.
“We may look at the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Sudan, South Sudan and all the way down to Zimbabwe and Zambia,” the firm’s managing partner, Mr Ayisi Makatiani, said.

With regard to the Kenyan market, Mr Kambasha said that their performance year to date was around 32 percent while in Zimbabwe it stood at 31 percent.

“Mind you, this is after the market had dropped about 24 percent in the wake of uncertainty in August. As it stands in Q3 we are down -5 percent and Kenya is up 11 percent and we have since started crawling back.

“It only makes sense for those invested in the Kenyan market to take some profits and invest in countries like Zimbabwe before prices regain momentum.

“We had quite a number of Kenyan institutions at our annual conference this year showing the growing interest in Zimbabwe,” he noted.
Botswana Stock Exchange-listed retail group Choppies Enterprises last week announced the acquisition of 49 percent of an unnamed Zimbabwean supermarket chain comprising 10 stores.

The cost of acquisition is less than 5 percent of the company’s market capitalisation of US$424,2 million which is equivalent to at most US$21,2 million.

The settlement of the consideration is said to be done over a period of time as the takeover of the stores progresses.