Initial public offers (IPOs) on African stock exchanges for the first half of 2014 has raised capital totalling $808.5 million, compared to a total of $757.5m raised throughout 2013. The data show there have been 9 African IPOs in 2014 to 30 June, compared to 18 in 2013 and 10 in 2012 on stock exchanges in Casablanca, Dar es Salaam, Johannesburg, Nigeria and Tunisia when the total raised was $342.6m.
The figures are given in a blog in the Wall Street Journal, citing figures from consultant EY.
According to the WSJ blog, domestic and international pension funds and other corporate institutional investors are putting more cash into African markets. It highlights new money from Africa’s fast-growing domestic pension funds and growing confidence in African frontier market equities, quoting Joseph Rohm, portfolio manager at Investec Asset Management: “These are nascent capital markets and they are illiquid markets. But what has been encouraging is that, for the first time in a long time, we are starting to see more capital raisings.”
He attributed the IPO increase to an earlier boom in private-equity investments: “We have known for a long time that the amount of private equity in African markets—and more broadly in frontier markets—is unprecedented and we are starting to see those opportunities coming to public markets.”
Bourse de Tunis saw 2 IPOs in 2012, but this was up to 11 last year and 2014 is also looking strong. WSJ[ blog cites Slim Feriani, chief executive officer and chief investment officer of Advance Emerging Capital, a Tunisian, who said: “In the next 5 to 10 years we are bound to see more IPOs. As it stands, some of the hidden gems are still in private hands,”
The blog also quotes Razia Khan, head of African region research at Standard Chartered, who said Africa’s IPO activity tends to be concentrated in key markets with most big deals so far in 2014 in North Africa. She added the current listing boom is evidence that the African markets are still recovering from the shock of the financial crisis in 2008: “The IPO activity lagged this recovery in growth—it’s not surprising that we’re seeing a rise, but the scale of it is interesting.”