Greystone issues E14.5m shares

MBABANE – Buying shares in local equities is one of the current viable business investments in Eswatini, due to their high performance.

Eswatini Stock Exchange (ESE) has a total of seven equities, which, in the month of July recorded positive growth due to high performance.

Investors to these equities will soon yield tangible dividends, which are expected in the next interim.

Shares worth a total of E15 092 541.75 were issued last month, and Greystone LTD had the highest value of E14 500 000 from five million shares.

Increased

Greystone has equity investment of E493 million which has since increased by E146 million from the last reporting period.

The share price of Greystone surged by 127 per cent and the dividends paid were over E29 million in the last reporting period.

The growth in Greystone was owed

VALUE TRADED OVER THE MONTH IN EQUITY COMPANIES

to their continuous growth observed from investments made to local companies.

“Institutional investors, which constitute mostly Eswatini pension funds, dominate Greystone’s shareholder base. There are currently no majority businesses were domiciled in Eswatini. The investee companies include Alliance Foods, Ngwane Mills, Lojaf, Orchard Insurance, Promco, Swazi Spa and SBC.

According to an ESE report for the month of May, Inala had the second highest number of shares issued, the equity recorded 52 000 shares issued worth E70 200.

SBC, an investment company partially owned by Greystone also issued 15 000 worth E120 000 on July 15, 2022, 31 406 shares worth E251 248 were issued on July 1, 2022.

Activity

Most activity in ESE equities was observed in the above listed companies.

ESE said the month of July 2022 had six trades. Month-on-month, the value traded increased by 463 per cent from E104 800 in June 2022 to E590 439 in July 2022.

As of July 31, 2022, ESE said the total Corporate Bonds value stood at E1 601 455 257. They said monthon-month, corporate bond activity marked a 0.68 per cent decrease in the overall total trading on the ESE, from E1 612 565 258 in June 2022.

Government bonds increased by 2.48 per cent, as they stood at E5 832 468 000. ESE all share index in July increased by 0.277 per cent to 465.33, it also increased by 1.609 per cent from 457.96 in July 2021.

Invest

Sandile Vilakati, a Forex Trade Expert said businesses needed to invest more in shares to subvert their cash flow.

He said when businesses purchase shares in large quantities, they would yield more dividends, which could be declared sooner than expected should market performance continue to rise.

“Business owners who do not but shares are not interest in dividends, they help in cash flow and are very imperative to the sector,” he said.

When asked what the benefits of investing in ESE equities were, he outlined that all listed equities had a steady growth in their performance to date.

Stock broking firms in the period under review were only three, which include Eswatini Stockbrokers Limited, African Alliance Eswatini Securities Limited and ESW Securities Limited.