Mynhardts� P456m deal breaks BSE records
Brian Benza | Friday July 21, 2017 18:00
The deal, which ensured lucrative spin-offs in commissions for stockbrokers, constituted 94% of the P484.6 million worth of trades registered on the bourse on Wednesday.
Before the deal, the Mynhardt family owned 325 million shares in NAP, through Cash Bazaars, constituting a 54% shareholding in the property company.
Wednesday’s deal, where the shares were sold at P3.21 each, saw Cash Bazaars’ holding in NAP reduced to 30%. Around the same time last year, Cash Bazaars also snapped BSE records when they reduced their shareholding in NAP by 26% in a deal worth P457 million.
This means Cash Bazaars has raised over P900 million from offloading about 50% shareholding in NAP since June last year.
“Last year’s deal was probably to comply with the pending new listing rules where at least 30% of a listed company’s shareholding must be free float.
This week’s deal is probably along the same lines but they (Mynhardts) could be raising funds for other investments. The 142 million shares were bought by different fund managers after a bookbuild,” said a stockbroker, who declined to be named, as he was not authorised to speak to the media on the deal.
In a statement released after last year’s deal, NAP managing director, Tobias Mynhardt said the 26% reduction in shareholding would broaden the company’s investor pool.
“This means that the move will facilitate ownership of underlying premier properties such as Riverwalk to a wider investor base. We expect to create more liquidity for the shares and increase free float, which aligns with the BSE’s vision,” he said.
NAP’s portfolio, which was worth P1.3 billion as at July 2016, holds 57 properties in Botswana, seven in Namibia with income streams underpinned by 450 leases, predominantly in the retail sector. Commenting on record trading the chief executive officer of the BSE Thapelo Tsheole said, “I am happy about this achievement, which is in line with our 2017-2021 BSE strategy to grow the market and increase the average daily turnover levels to P18 million per day by 2021. This shows the capability of the BSE to handle such big trades”.
Meanwhile, the BSE has also announced that its 2017 first half performance was in the negative although it was an improvement from the same period last year. In a market update, the BSE said the benchmark Domestic Companies Index (DCI) has depreciated by 1.7% in comparison to a depreciation of 4.9% during the same period in 2016.
The Foreign Company Index (FCI) has depreciated by 0.2% on a year to date basis relative to an appreciation of 1.5% over the same period in 2016. As at June 30, 2017, the BSE had recorded a turnover of P903.8 million from 291.4 million shares traded. During the same period in 2016, the BSE had registered a turnover of P1.64 billion and a total volume of 483.1 million shares traded.
“Following a year of negative performance (of negative 11.3%) in domestic equities in 2016, the inclination for investors has been to hold until performance recovers and indications of recovery were noted in the DCI’s performance in the second quarter where it appreciated by a marginal 0.2%,” the BSE said.