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By Tawanda Musarurwa
THE London Stock Exchange roadshow to Zimbabwe starts tomorrow with top industrialists from the United Kingdom and Zimbabwe set to attend.
The event is running under the theme, “Raising capital opportunities on London Stock Exchange for African-focused entities”.
The meeting will be an open forum, with more than 150 chief executives, regulators, legal firms, financial institutions and a visiting team of investment bankers, accounting firms, stockbrokers from the UK and South Africa.
DEAT Capital managing director Mr Nicky Moyo said the LSE delegation will assist local companies on how to raise offshore equity.
“The visiting investment bankers have strong track records of capital raising and are very excited at the prospects of working and raising capital for Zimbabwe-focused countries,” he said, “especially after a successful capital-raising exercise on AIM last year by Masawara plc, an entity promoted by our own successful entrepreneur Mr Shingai Mutasa, chairman of TA Holdings.
“We believe this is a massive boost for the Zimbabwean economy and confidence. The LSE market is home to some of the world’s largest institutional and private investors.”
According to the organisers, the key themes for the forum include: primary and secondary markets activity and trends (LSE’s AIM and Main Market), developing international capital-raising strategy on LSE, experiences of Zimbabwean-focused entities listed on LSE, and an overview of specialist securities including Exchange Tradable Funds and Securitised Derivatives, including exchange initiatives for 2011.
Keynote speakers at the event include Mr Bayo Odubeko, head of the firm’s Africa Group. Mr Odubeko has advised on a broad range of domestic and international mergers and acquisitions (M&As) transactions for both public and private clients, including acquisitions and disposals, auctions, public takeovers, joint ventures, debt for equity swaps, fund-raisings and Initial Public Offers (both Official List and AIM).
Mr Ibukun Adebayo, who is responsible for the London Stock Exchange’s business development activities in South Asia, the Middle East and Africa, will also address the event.
The panellists will also include Mr Michael Lynch-Bell, responsible for leading Ernst & Young’s Global Mining and Metals Transaction Advisory Services team; Westhouse Securities Plc director and chief operating officer Mr Tom Price; and Securities Commission of Zimbabwe chief executive Mr Alban Chirume.
The meeting will also be addressed by TA Holdings Ltd chairman and Masawara plc executive director Mr Shingai Mutasa, Deloitte (Zimbabwe and Malawi) chief executive Mr Tawanda Gumbo, Securities Commission of Zimbabwe chairperson Mrs Willia Bonyongwe and DEAT Capital managing director Mr Nicky Moyo.
In addition to the presentations, the meeting will consist of one-on-one sessions with pre-arranged meetings between Zimbabwean companies and teams from the LSE and adviser network teams.
The LSE has a current market capitalisation of US$3 trillion.
In the last five years over US$90 billion has been raised on AIM for small emerging offers — well-managed, robust but under-capitalised companies.