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ZCCM Investments Holdings, which holds minority stakes in Zambian copper mines on behalf of the government of the southern African nation, is considering having its shares trade in London, its chief executive officer said.
The company is also considering upgrading to a higher tier of the NYSE Euronext in Paris, where its stock trades on the Marche Libre, an unregulated over-the-counter market, Pius Kasolo said today in Lusaka, the capital.
“We are trying to see the advantages of moving to a more regulated market,” he said in an interview after ZCCM Investments’ annual general meeting. “There will also have to be economic sense in doing that.”
The company has in the past year held a rights offer to clear debt owed to the government and declared its first dividend. Last week it named Kasolo CEO, after Mukela Muyunda opted not to renew his contract in May to run the company overseeing investments including mines in Africa’s biggest copper producer after the Democratic Republic of Congo.
ZCCM Investments has also started the process to ensure it meets a requirement of the Lusaka Stock Exchange, where it is also traded, to have a minimum of 25 percent of shares held by the public, its chief financial officer said in an interview. The company couldn’t give a timeline for reaching this target or say whether it would issue new shares, Mabvuto Chipata said.
The company, of which the government owns 87.5 percent, will pay out a fifth of its profit in dividends in future, Chipata said earlier at the AGM. ZCCM Investments last month announced a dividend of 251 million kwacha ($39.8 million), the first since its inception in 2000.
To contact the reporter on this story: Matthew Hill in Lusaka at [email protected]
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Antony Sguazzin at [email protected] John Viljoen, Michael Gunn
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2014-10-07/zambia-s-zccm-investments-considers-listing-in-london
