Engineering News and Mining Weekly
JSE makes it easier to list, stay listed
The Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) has made it a lot easier to list on the JSE and to stay listed. Removed have been listing requirements that do not add investor protection but take a lot of time and effort.
Good market response was seen in October with the listing of Primary Healthcare Properties of the UK, which allows investors to have access to offshore markets while the shares remain categorised as local, owing to the nature of the inward listing.
“Investors are looking for excellent assets and so anybody thinking about listing is welcome to reach out to us. We’d love to hold your hand on that journey,” JSE origination and deals head Sam Mokorosi enthused to Mining Weekly in a Zoom interview.
Considerable educational-type work is being done by the JSE to incentivise noninstitutional retail investors to invest in greater numbers on the exchange.
One of the challenges is that many small capitalisations that do capture the imagination of the retail investors, have reduced retail research coverage. To overcome this, investor showcases that highlight the enticing aspects of small market capitalisation businesses have been introduced, along with the broadcasting of stock picks that remain on YouTube, as well as the clinching of a television partnership to provide ongoing visibility to listed companies. Interestingly, trading statistics and volumes typically increase around the timing of those shows. What also needs to be highlighted are assets rich in environmental, social and governance (ESG) characteristics, which are attracting big and small investors.
Mining Weekly: But will South Africa ever be able to attract listings in the same way as mining jurisdictions such as Canada and Australia? Mokorosi: Canada and Australia have a lot
of things going for them, even though our mining activity is quite strong. The investor universe of Canada and Australia is very different from ours. It’s very strong in retail investors, which are able to take risk with much smaller junior mining and exploration companies. But we are trying to copy some of the great things that they have in Australia and Canada. Flow-through shares, for example, have been instrumental in bringing investment into exploration companies in Canada. That’s something that we’ve been speaking to the regulators about to see if we can explore putting that in South Africa.
What drivers led to Copper 360 being able to list so successfully on the JSE’s AltX this year?
Copper 360 is a really exciting story, tapping into some of the ESG, some of the green, and some of the electric vehicle movements that we’re seeing all over the world. Renewable energy and electric vehicles need a lot of copper and so I think investors saw the potential in Copper 360, which were able to raise funds, list, and be oversubscribed in their fund raise. It’s really been good to see the developments in the company as they’ve increased their reserves and continued to grow as a company from a minerals perspective.