UGANDA STOCK MARKET: EAC share markets to harmonize standards

Aug 25, 2013

Share markets in the five East African Community countries are set to roll out uniform listing, governance and risk based supervision standards as activity on the regional share markets starts to climb.Umeme, Uganda’s electricity utility company, has successful cross listed its shares on the Kenyan

By Samuel Sanya

Share markets in the five East African Community countries are set to roll out uniform listing, governance and risk based supervision standards as activity on the regional share markets starts to climb.

Umeme, Uganda’s electricity utility company, has successful cross listed its shares on the Kenyan share markets, making it the first Ugandan firm to cross list in Kenya.

There are seven cross listed Kenyan firms on Uganda’s share markets.

Japheth Kato, the Capital Markets Authority (CMA – Uganda) boss noted that a harmonised Risk Based Supervision framework will aid in early identification of emerging risks and provide a consistent measure of risk evaluation in the region.

He made the comments as chair of an East African Securities Regulatory Authorities consultative meeting in Nairobi, Kenya. There were representatives from the host country, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and Tanzania.

Joseph Sanjula, the CMA- Uganda research and policy analysis manager, earlier noted that the present one-size-fits-all approach to supervision of listed companies is being substituted by a new regime that assesses the inherent risk in each company.

At a prior International Organisation of Securities Commissions workshop in Kampala, Stella Kilonzo of CMA-Kenya noted that capital markets are highly dependent on market confidence, something tighter supervision ensures.

The recent cross listing of Umeme shares successfully tested the East African Regional Interdepository Transfer Mechanism linking share markets in Uganda and Kenya.

The system also increases share mobility between the two markets, making it easier and quicker for investors in either country to purchase stock in neighbouring countries. It now takes less than 30 days to purchase cross listed stock.

Eminent departures of Japtheth Kato from the helm of the CMA and Joseph Kitamirike from the Uganda Securities Exchange have not affected investor appetite on the share markets despite a slowdown in the all Share index.

The all Share Index slowed to sh1550.79 from sh1561.81 at the close of business on Tuesday with a slight instability in the price of shares on the Baroda counter.

Bank of Baroda stock touched lows of sh110 per share and highs of sh115 with 3.85m shares on offer with no willing buyers.

Uganda’s leading daily the New Vision has registered a sh5 increment in share price to trade at sh605 selling 2,500 shares on Tuesday.

The Stanbic Bank counter commanded the highest level of activity, selling 2.25 million shares with bids for 24.7 million shares unable to match prices with 19.8 million shares on offer.

Some 392,262 shares were sold on the Umeme counter for sh360 per share. Bids for 945,000 shares were unable to match prices with 544,000 shares on offer by the close of business on Tuesday.

 

(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});