admin
Business Reporter
The Zimbabwe Stock Exchange executed $54 million worth of special bargain deals between January and mid September, far eclipsing the total for the whole of 2013.Statistics from the bourse show that only $41,3 million special bargain deals were concluded for the entire period of 2013.
Most of the high value special bargain deals concluded on ZSE involved mostly bellwether stocks ABC Holdings, Seed Co, Econet, Delta and CBZ, which have over the years consistently posted good profit despite a difficult environment.
Pan-African financial services group ABC Holdings led the stakes after concluding a $38 million special bargain deal with Atlas Mara. The trade of 46,4 million shares at 82 cents, involved nearly 65 percent of ABCH’s Zimbabwe register.
On March 31 2014, Atlas Mara announced an agreement to purchase 50,1 percent of the ABCH in a $265 million transaction.
Atlas Mara has acquired 95,8 percent of the issued share capital of ABCH listed on the Botswana and Zimbabwe stock exchanges and will make an offer to minority shareholders.
The offer will be made through a cash consideration of 82 cents for shares on the BSE and ZSE registers.
Atlas Mara, which is co-owned by Ugandan billionaire Ashish Thakkar and former Barclays Plc chief executive Bob Diamond announced in April the proposed multi-million dollar purchase of ABCH through a cash and shares deal.
Seed processor, Seed Co, weighed in with the second biggest value of special deals on the ZSE during the period to September 2014 after shares worth over $23 million were sold.
The first two Seed Co special bargain deals were executed at premiums of 99,5 cents per share against a market price of 91 cents while a further huge tranche of shares was again concluded in April at special price of 99,5 cents.
In April, Seed Co sold about $1 million worth of shares in a special deal of 89 cents against the market price of 90 cents.
United Kingdom-registered seed producer Limagrain in January bought over 20 million Seed Co shares at a special bargain price of 99,25 cents as part of the private placement deal, which will see its subsidiary, Vilmorin & Cie, taking up a 25 percent shareholding in the local seed producer.
Beverage maker Delta, was one of only few stocks in which special bargain deals running into millions of dollars were executed, after over $7 million of its shares were sold. Delta’s special bargain deals were concluded at 115 cents each.
An almost similar value — $7 million — special bargain deal has also been concluded for Zimbabwe’s biggest mobile telecommunications company, Econet Wireless, since January.
Online Reporter