BSE braces for listings conference

Botswana Stock Exchange (BSE) has unveiled four main sponsors for this year’s Listings Conference that is scheduled for March 8. The four are; Botswana Insurance Holdings Limited (BIHL), Choppies, Monthe Marumo Attorneys and Rantao and Kewagamang Associates. Chief Executive Officer, Thapelo Tsheole said ahead of the March conference that they are working hard to raise awareness about the stock market in order to attract companies to the bourse.

According to Tsheole, the aim of the conference is to open up the BSE to the business community and bring together under one roof, all stakeholders, public and private companies with the potential to list on the BSE, listed companies and experts in capital markets to discuss among others; the importance of listing, listing processes and requirements. Among the topics that will be discussed at this year’s conference are; listing family-run businesses, crypto currencies, listing innovative products and the World Federation of Exchanges that BSE subscribes to will be represented. Tsheole said through the 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.

“We want to attract more companies to list because through listing they do not only raise capital for themselves but they contribute to economic diversification and development,” said Tsheole. He said last year BSE has seen three new companies listing including Minergy, CA Sales and Tlou Energy. According to him, since 2016 the BSE has been working with a few companies with the hope that they would list. “We will begin to see results of these engagements this year and next,” he said. Among exciting developments that the BSE is embarking on this year and going forward, is to install a statue of a stock market bull in their premises and a ticker that show prices as stocks trade.

All this as part of sensitising the public about the stock exchange. The first listing conference held in 2016 attracted 150 companies and last year attracted about 400 companies. Tsheole said the conference is part of the BSE strategy to raise capital and increase turnover. The BSE market performance report for 2017 shows that BSE realised a turnover of about P2.4 million which is a slight decrease from P2.5 million raised in 2016. The average daily turnover for 2017 amounted to P10 million compared to P10.2 million in 2016. Tsheole said the bond market activity improved in 2017 compared to 2016 as the value of bonds traded increased from P483.8 million in 2016 to P535.6 million in 2017. BIHL Chief Executive, Cathrine Lesetedi said listing on the BSE is one of the platforms to diversify the economy and it also enables the companies to exercise good corporate governance.

“Listing encourages good corporate governance with high standards of reporting and transparency,” she said. Lesetedi also highlighted that BIHL has benefited a lot from listing, as it is currently the second largest company by market cap on the BSE. She added that corporate governance at company or country level is critical as it can mean the difference between failure and success.