Botswana Stock Exchange’s (BSE) index of local companies continued to make impressive gains as leading stocks saw their share prices going up on back of positive results. Local research house, Motswedi Securities said in its weekly stock market report that the Domestic company Index (DCI) advanced by 84 basis points on the back of strong gains from blue chip stocks that include First National Bank of Botswana (FNBB) and Sechaba Brewery Limited amongst others.
“It was quite an auspicious week as 11 counters were cruising in the black, with 64 percent of them trading at new 12 month highs,” said Martin Makgatlhe’s company.
Sechaba, the investment holding company with interest in Kgalagadi Breweries (Pty) Limited (KBL) surged by 3.5 percent to close the week at 2950thebe; its 12 month high followed by RDCP which rose by 2.9 percent trading at 213thebe. Banking giants, FNBB went up by 2.7 percent to trade at 380thebe. The bank last week released its half year results for the period ending December 31, 2014 which showed it grew advances to customers by 16 percent to P12.7 billion, while profit before tax was down 5 percent.
Other gainers for the week were Chobe, G4S and Turnstar, among others. However, consumer lender Letshego Holdings lost 0.8 percent to end the week at 247thebe. Despite announcing positive results for 2014, junior miner Lucara Diamond shed 1.1 percent to trade at 1600thebe. The company, which owns Karowe mine, reported full year revenues of US$266 million and a year-end cash balance of US$101 million.
“The increase in revenues of 47 percent $85.0 million compared to the prior year was due to higher prices received for the Karowe diamonds and a larger number of carats being sold in the large exceptional stones tenders, which contributed $135.6 million to revenues,” the company said.
“The exceptional stone sales resulted in an average price of $32,471 per carat in 2014 (2013: $24,290 per carat, with the remaining tenders achieving $318 per carat (2013: $249 per carat).”
