Botswana Stock Exchange Limited’s has recorded a total turnover of P3.6 Billion in 2020 compared to P4.2 Billion in 2019, which is a decline of 14.1 percent.
A look into the turnover of the trading activity in 2020, the top three traded companies during the period under review were Letshego Holdings Limited with P170.7 million, and then followed by First National Bank Botswana (FNBB) with P81.2 Million and thirdly it was Sechaba with turnover of P78.0 Million.
The total turnover from these three companies accounted for 47.2 percent of total equity turnover, with the leading counter Letshego accounting for 24.4 percent of total equity turnover. In comparison to the same period in 2019, the top three traded companies accounted for 42.8 percent of total equity turnover with the leading counter Wilderness accounting for 15.6 percent of total equity turnover.
“Listed companies equally experienced the challenges brought about by the pandemic particularly on the back of national lockdowns and restrictions in movement,” reads the report.
Stated the BSE’s market performance report for the period 1 January to 31 December 2020, is that it is mainly on account of a 61.4 percent reduction in equity turnover relative to 2019. BSE Bonds recorded a 26.7 percent increase in turnover and this is attributable to the high demand for capital especially during an economic downturn by both corporates and government.
Investor’s contribution to equity, trading activity was dominated by local investors as was the case in the previous year. Local institutional investors combined with local individual investors accounted for 60.4 percent of trading activity in 2020 compared to 66.6 percent in the previous,” reads the report.
Led by chief executive officer (CEO) Thapelo Tsheole, BSE stated in the report that while the year ended without any new equity listings, there was tremendous activity in the equity primary market and in the fixed income market in terms of new bond listings.
Stated is that additional share issuances on the BSE raised capital amounting to P103.9 million and P86.5 million on the domestic board and the foreign board respectively.
Further stated in the report is that new bonds issued by corporates raised P465 million while government raised a record P5.2 Billion through additional tranches of existing bonds. BSE also stated that this remarkable level of activity reaffirms the importance of harnessing the power of capital markets to consistently raise capital.
“We also credit this level of activity to our efforts of sensitizing the market and issuers as to how companies can utilize the stock exchange during and post-Covid-19 pandemic, which were carried out by way of a well-publicised paper and through virtual interactions especially in the second half of the year,” stated in the report.
According to the report, BSE is of the view that the outlook for 2021 is extremely hard to quantify, but forecasts of the economic downturn point to a very challenging period for the national economy. Added is that in 2020, they aggressively promoted the listings value proposition and it has been heart-warming to note the appetite by several companies to list in the short to medium term.
