Formation of secondary bourse on cards

Senior Business Reporter

THE Zimbabwe Stock Exchange Limited (ZSE) has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with listed micro-finance concern, GetBucks Microfinance Bank Limited, which will see the two parties working together towards the formation of a secondary bourse to cater for Small to Medium Enterprises (SMEs), the Zimbabwe Emerging Enterprise Market (Zeem).

In a statement to stakeholders, ZSE confirmed the signing of an MoU with GetBucks Microfinance Bank, which would pave the way for the operationalisation of the Zeem.

“The ZSE wishes to advise stakeholders on the signing of a MoU between the ZSE and GetBucks. The partnership will entail the two parties working together towards operationalising Zeem,” read part of the statement.

ZSE said as part of ensuring the listing of SMEs on the secondary bourse it would conduct a series of trainings in various parts of the country. 

“The Zeem product will be offered through an over the counter platform targeted at initially offering working capital solutions for formalised businesses, including SMEs. Over time, the ZSE will facilitate and assist small to medium size enterprises to list on the secondary bourse through training, workshops and other initiatives to educate SMEs on benefits of listing and meeting the requirements. GetBucks will play a critical role in terms of support,” read the statement. 

The two institutions are also working towards establishing a Receivables Exchange. A Receivables Exchange is an auction-based marketplace connecting large corporate sellers of receivables to a broad network of buyers.

“The ZSE and GetBucks are also working together in establishing a receivables exchange, a precursor to the Zeem project. This collaboration reinforces ZSE’s drive to foster the growth of the capital markets in Zimbabwe and resonates with our vision of facilitating economic development in Zimbabwe and Africa. The ZSE is looking forward to a fruitful partnership with GetBucks in ensuring the growth of SMEs under ZEEM,” read the statement. 

A com­pany ap­ply­ing for list­ing on Zeem is ex­pected to have been in­cor­po­rated and
reg­is­tered in terms of the Com­pa­nies Act (Cap 24.03) or un­der any other law of the coun­try of in­cor­po­ra­tion. It should have a min­i­mum share cap­i­tal (in­clud­ing re­serves but ex­clud­ing mi­nor­ity in­ter­ests, and reval­u­a­tions of as­sets and in­tan­gi­ble as­sets that are not sup­ported by a val­u­a­tion by an in­de­pen­dent pro­fes­sional ex­pert ac­cept­able to the ZSE pre­pared within the last six months) of $250 000 at the time of list­ing.

Ac­cord­ing to the reg­u­la­tions, the pub­lic shall hold a min­i­mum of 26 per­cent of each class of eq­uity se­cu­ri­ties listed and the num­ber of pub­lic share­hold­ers shall be at least 50.

The reg­u­la­tions state that for a com­pany
cur­rently listed on the ZSE, the float is 30 per­cent and the num­ber of share­hold­ers should be at least 300. The com­pany should also have his­tor­i­cal fi­nan­cial in­for­ma­tion in re­spect of a pe­riod of at least one year up to the year of is­su­ing the pre-list­ing state­ment of the
ap­pli­cant, pre­pared in ac­cor­dance with
In­ter­na­tional Fi­nan­cial Re­port­ing Stan­dards.

@DNsingo