MSE upbeat on its 2015 performance

The Malawi Stock Exchange (MSE) says it has achieved substantial growth in performance and total market capitalisation in 2015 although it made no new listings on the market.

In an interview, MSE chief executive officer John Kamanga said the stock market has been successful in some of its dealings during the year and provided good returns to the economy.

He said the market, which provides a platform for capitalising in terms of equity participation and bond issuing, has yielded positive results through its outreach programmes aimed at encouraging participation in the market.

“We have seen graduates and secondary students investing on the market. During the year, we also jointly with the Reserve Bank of Malawi held the financial literacy week which was successful,” he said, adding that the local bourse also strengthened its human resource capacity.

Kamanga added that the market has also seen continued growth in foreign inquiries which has been made possible through its website and that it received international exposure during the year.

“The market has been well exposed to the international forum. We have made several presentations about opportunities existing on the stock market through the African Stock Exchanges Association (ASEA).

“We have been part of the meetings twice over the year to an audience of not only investors from the African region, but from beyond as well,” he said.

He, however, said the market was hit by limited numbers of listed counters which saw potential investors being unable to participate in the market.

“As much as we have done a good marketing and awareness campaign, there are minimal products on the stock market. As such, when investors come to buy shares, most of the times they found none,” he said.

He said in view of this, the stock market would continue to woo issuers and encourage government in 2016 to list their bonds on the market to establish bond yields which can be used to benchmark the introduction of the corporate paper issued by the private sector.

In an earlier interview, Kamanga also said the market recorded a percentage growth of over 23.5 percent in domestic listed companies and in excess of 244.8 percent for all listed companies. n