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Zimbabwe: economic conditions dents stock exchange

By , Journalist
Zimbabwe , 29 Sep 2015

Zimbabwe: economic conditions dents stock exchange

There were no trades in Zimbabwe's Econet Wireless on the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange on Monday as the market opened weaker and traders blamed worsening economic conditions for low investor interest.

Econet Wireless is Zimbabwe's biggest telecommunications company with mobile network, mobile money and mobile insurance operations, as well as banking inside the country.

Econet is one of the blue chip counters on the ZSE that foreign investors are interested in, but this week opened on a low note owing to weakening fundamentals and dipping economic performance in Zimbabwe.

"Econet is among the resilient counters, but fundamentals have not been strong - although the market is anticipating the profit decline for the first half to August to be much better owing to cost containment measures," a trader on the ZSE said on Tuesday morning.

The ZSE slipped by 0.18% on Monday, with capitalisation opening the week at $3.64 billion.

Analysts at IH Securities said in a morning summary of the ZSE Monday session that the Industrial Index had declined by 0.19%, weighed down by no movement in trade volumes and values in counters such as Econet Wireless.

"Heavyweight counters Delta, Econet and Innscor recorded no movement and no trades," said IH Securities.

Other analysts and traders say they anticipate volumes and value in Econet to only improve after the company's half year results are released. They also said they expect the Zimbabwean stock market to remain subdued in the short term outlook.

"Despite short term headwinds, Econet's revenue diversification bodes well for solid earnings growth in the medium to long term. The company has recently undertaken cost containment measures that have resulted in savings of up to $70mn. We believe this stock is becoming oversold," the IH Securities analysts say in an outlook note on the company.

Econet has a market capitalisation of around $459 million and the IH Securities analysts have projected trade in the company's counter to improve on the back of investor interest after the company embarked on cost cutting initiatives to preserve cash and improve its profit position.

Revenues for the full year to end February declined from $753 million to $746 million while after tax profits tumbled by a massive 41% to $70 million.

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