BSE host listings conference

The Botswana Stock Exchange (BSE) will in March 10th this year host its inaugural listings conference in Gaborone.

The conference will be under the theme ‘opening the BSE to the business community-creating value through listing’, with the objective of attracting private companies to list on the BSE.

It also intends to create a platform for listed companies to share lessons on how they can create value through listing and how they can leverage on their listing to expand their services and product offerings to markets outside Botswana.

The BSE has invited small, medium and large enterprises that are not listed to come and share experiences of how listed companies used the bourse to grow their companies.

Speaking at a media briefing this Wednesday, BSE Chief Executive Officer, Thapelo Tsheole said through this conference, they are creating relationships with the private and unlisted companies and establishing a means of educating the present and future business owners about the value of utilising the BSE to pursue growth opportunities.

Similarly, the BSE is harnessing and nourishing relationships with companies that are already listed by giving them a platform to give back to the unlisted in the form of practical business experiences.

“To remain relevant and attractive, we need to have more companies in the stock market. We are looking to incubate companies that can potentially list in the short; medium to long term therefore we want to be part of their developmental process. Despite the smaller size of the country’s economy in terms of consumption capacity given the smaller size of the population, the BSE listed companies have demonstrated that business opportunities are not defined by geographic boundaries,” he indicated.

By this, Tsheole explained that these companies have grown tremendously beyond Botswana into Sub-Saharan Africa. They have fully explored the benefits brought about by listing and they continue to do so.

Tsheole said the aim of the conference is to increase their daily and annual turnovers, adding that, “we want to increase our daily turnovers from P12.1million per day to a bigger number and our annual P3billion to more of that.” Boiki Tema, Coverage Director at RMB Botswana shared that there is an opportunity and capacity for investors to growth their wealth.