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Business Reporter
FINANCE and Economic Development Minister, Professor Mthuli Ncube, has applauded Econet subsidiary, Cassava SmarTech Zimbabwe’s separate listing on the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange (ZSE) and called for more companies to do the same.

Cassava SmarTech made history recently when it debuted on the securities market at a price of $1,50 per share, valuing the company at $3,8 billion.

The financial technology firm immediately became Zimbabwe’s third most valuable company after Delta and Econet Wireless.

Posting on his Twitter handle, Minister Ncube said firms that list on the ZSE have greater advantage.

“Congratulations to Cassava for listing on the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange. More companies should list in 2019, and take full advantage of going public,” he said.

“This includes mining development companies, sitting on claims, who should emulate peers on Toronto stock exchange.”

The coming in of Cassava is viewed as the largest public listing in Zimbabwe’s history and the first listing in three years, which will go a long way in helping pension funds in particular build portfolios of sound stock.

In splitting Econet’s listing into two separate companies, the value of their combined shares has gone up from $3,2 billion to $7,6 billion in less than three months.

This has achieved the stated objective of Econet founder Strive Masiyiwa, who said it was designed to “unlock” the value of the business.

Several international research analysts had already predicted that Cassava would command high valuations because of the nature of its businesses.

Cassava is essentially a technology platforms business that uses the mobile network to deliver services in almost every sector of the economy including financial services, health, agriculture, media, transport and logistics and education.

The most popular services are EcoCash, and EcoSure, which have become mainstays of financial services.

Both Investec and African Alliance pointed out in their reports that Cassava should be seen as one of the most successful Fintech platforms primarily because of EcoCash and EcoSure.

Its banking unit Steward Bank is not a traditional bank, as its revenues are driven by the embedded role it provides in supporting EcoCash.

It has more customers than all the banks put together.

The biggest push by Cassava at the moment is in transport and logistics, where its Vaya brand is set to be Zimbabwe’s own Uber.

Zimbabwe has more than 2 million people commuting daily, and if Vaya can capture a slice of that market, it is going to be huge, creating another platform to increase valuation.

Zimbabwe is one of the countries in Africa with the highest rate of cashless transactions.