Zimbabwe’s dollar-denominated stock exchange plans to increase its market value by 25% over the next year as it rolls out new products, including a venture board to help junior mining and exploration companies raise capital.
“We are currently on the $4 billion mark, and we will work hard to reach $5 billion” over the next 12 months, Victoria Falls Stock Exchange Chief Executive Officer Justin Bgoni said in an interview Thursday in the city 550 kilometres (342 miles) east of the capital, Harare.
“Our focus is on product diversification and ensuring that we get more listings not just from equities,” but also from real estate investment trusts, and exchange-traded funds, Bgoni said. “This year we managed to witness the second REIT listing and the first ETF,” he said before the bourse’s 21st listing: Old Mutual, Africa’s largest insurance company by assets, on August 7.
The VFEX, established during a currency crisis in 2020, eclipsed the 132-year-old Harare-based Zimbabwe Stock Exchange by market value in March after tycoon Strive Masiyiwa transferred telecommunications infrastructure firm Econet InfraCo to the platform at a $1 billion valuation.
The bourse has added four new listings this year of its targeted six, Bgoni said. It also wants to establish a venture board that will serve as a “dedicated capital-raising platform for junior and exploration-stage companies, with an initial focus on the mining and natural resources sectors,” he said.
Zimbabwe is Africa’s largest lithium producer and is rich in a range of other resources including platinum and gold.
The VFEX also has ambitions of building a wealth management industry, Bgoni said.
“We are expecting some international ETFs, locally we have seen a lot of interest in REITs especially developmental” and there’s “a lot of interest in infrastructure bonds from financial institutions,” he said.