Africa-Press – Eswatini. The increase in the share prices of equities traded at Eswatini Stock Exchange (ESE) has hiked their turnover.
The month of September 2022 had seven trades, the value traded increased by 79.35 per cent to E532 780 in September 2022 from E110 256.30 in August 2022. ESE migrated to the Automated Trading System (ATS) with effect from Monday, October 17, 2022. ESE said this follows completion of all technical and operational processes, approval of the ESE rules by Financial Services Regulatory Authority (FSRA) and the publication of Dematerialisation Notice 269 of 2022.
Trading
Electronic trading commenced for ESE and only securities that have been transferred and registered at the Central Bank of Eswatini (CBE) Central Securities Depository (CSD) will be traded in the ATS. This was mentioned by ESE Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Ncamiso Ntshalintshali. Ntshalintshali said after implementation of the systems, all new IPOs and subsequent trading would be made in the CSD and the ATS, respectively. He said the CSD was commencing the dematerialisation process of the existing paper certificates and, therefore, required that shareholders opened investor accounts and dematerialised their securities in preparation for the trading of electronic based securities following implementation of the systems. “Current shareholders are consequently required to contact a registered stockbroker, custodian bank or transfer secretary to dematerialise their stock holdings. Stockholders will be required to complete a stock holding declaration and consent to dematerialise form upon presentation of the physical certificates; a signed and stamped copy of the form will be provided to the holder,” he added.
Process
The CEO also mentioned that the dematerialisation process would run from August 1, 2022 till February 29, 2024 as enshrined in section 116 of the Securities Act, 2010. He said this followed completion of all technical and operational processes, approval of the ESE rules by the FSRA and the publication of Dematerialisation Notice 269 of 2022. When asked what an ATS was, Ntshalintshali explained that it was an electronic platform offered by ESE for the purchase and sale of securities (shares, bonds, debentures and so on). He said the ATS had an order matching engine and replaces the manual trading of shares that Eswatini had all been used to. ESE said in August 2022, the market capitalisation for equities recorded gains up to three per cent in the past two days. The strong movement was owed to the hike in financial activities for companies trading locally. Noticeable changes were observed in some of the equities, which acquired new businesses thus enabling the market capitalisation to increase.
The all share index of Swazi Empowerment Limited (SEL) recorded a 2.7 per cent increase about two weeks ago. SEL had a market capitalisation of E666 000 000 last week, which has since increased to E684 500. The all share index of Inala Capital recorded a 3.7 per cent increase about a week ago. Inala Capital had a market capitalisation of E97 191 900 last week, which has since increased to E100 791 600. Nedbank Eswatini yielded the most gains as their market capitalization hiked by 3.9 per cent. Nedbank Eswatini had a market cap of E298 770 363, which adjusted to E310 721 177.
ESE overall market capitalization remain stagnant at E4 327 237 158. The Royal Eswatini Sugar (RES) Corporation Limited have the highest market capitaliation of E1 464 467 104.
At this rate, RES Corporation is likely to have a larger share of dividends in the current financial period. ESE announced that dividends from local companies listed in their markets should be paid directly to client’s bank accounts. ESE said this was in line with the Central Bank of Eswatini’s media statement issued July 20 2021, announcing the elimination of cheques as a mode of payment effective from January 2022.
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