Business Editor
THE Securities Commission of Zimbabwe has cleared ABC Holdings, Zimplow and Fidelity Life Assurance of price manipulation after their share prices rose sharply in December last year.
The regulatory authority launched investigations on Fidelity after the assurance company’s share price jumped 53,06 percent on 30 December last year following competitive bidding by three securities challenging a book-over by another firm, with the trades funded by different clients.
According to the findings of the investigations, it was established that during the period of high demand, Fidelity Life shares were in short supply.
“An order to buy shares worth $107,000 placed on 20 December could not be fulfilled until its withdrawal from the market on the 7th of January 2014.
“The price of Fidelity Life Assurance limited shares remained firm, trading at levels above 13 cents after 30 December 2013 for a period of a week before settling at 12 cents close to a month. All bids on the day were supported by genuine orders and all the trades recorded on the day settled successfully,” SECZ chief executive officer Tafadzwa Chinamo said.
“Based on the analysis of trading and settlement statistics provided by the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange, SECZ investigations and interviews with concerned Securities dealing firms, fund managers and underlying clients, all trades in the respective companies recorded on 30 December were proved to be genuine,”
In clearing the other two companies, SECZ said: “SHARES of ABC Holdings soared 63 percent in ZSE trading on Monday as investors cheered the impending $265 million takeover deal by global firm Atlas Mara Co-nvest Limited, but the main index dropped to its lowest point since January 28 last year.
On Monday this week ABC share price spiked from 27 cents to 70cents with close to 5,000 shares valued at $3,420 exchanging hands.
This comes on the back of an announcement by Atlas Mara, co-owned by Ugandan billionaire Ashish Thakkar and former Barclays plc CEO Bob Diamond that it would acquire BancABC, which offers financial services in Botswana, Mozambique, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe.