THE Council of the Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE) has intensified its calls for government to reduce its holdings in state owned enterprises listed on the Exchange.
GCB Bank, GOIL, SIC Insurance, PBC and Cocoa Processing Company are all listed companies which are still majority owned by the Government of Ghana. In each of these firms, government owns more than 50 per cent.
But the Chairman of the Council of the GSE and one time Financial Sector Adviser at the Finance Ministry, Dr. Sam Mensah believes government’s ability to ‘rationalize its participation’ further in these listed companies will boost activities and liquidity on the market.
According to him, these shares will look attractive while their share prices will also improve.
Director General of the SEC, Adu Anane Antwi and the Managing Director of GSE, Kofi Yamoah, have in the past years been appealing to government to support its course for multinational companies such as MTN, GoldFields and Airtel operating in critical sectors of the economy to float shares on the Accra Bourse to enable Ghanaians own part of the businesses.
They have been calling for a local content policy to compel these firms to list on the GSE.
Last year, the GSE Composite Index, which measures the entire performance of the Accra Bourse returned 5.4 percent gain to investors compared to 78.8 percent in 2013.
It however recorded 4.03 percent gain to investors at the end of the first six months of 2015. But in dollar term it returned -2.23 percent to the investors.
Its Financial Stock Index grew by 6.73 percent in Cedi term but recorded a negative return in dollar terms.
The market capitalization for all listed securities at the end of December 2014 was GH¢64.4 billion, compared to GH¢61.2 billion in 2013.
Volume traded at the end of 2014 stood at 207 million shares valued at GH¢346 million, compared to the volume of 313 million shares and value of GH¢456 million in 2013.
HFC Bank emerged as the overall best performing stock on the GSE in the year 2014. It made a capital gain of a little above 56 percent, ending the year at GH¢1.50.
Ecobank Transnational Incorporated (ETI), parent company of Ecobank Ghana was the second best performing stock on the market with a 47 percent return for investors.
Mega Africa Capital placed 3rd with a 45 percent growth while Stanchart came 4th with a 36 percent capital gain. Ecobank Ghana was 5th with a capital gain of 36 percent.
In all, 14 companies recorded gains. Out if this, 7 were financial stocks, 3 in the manufacturing sector and 3 in the oil industry. 17 companies recorded losses including 4 financial stocks and 9 manufacturing.
So far in 2015, the GSE Alternative Market for SMEs have listed two companies including Samba Foods and Meridian Marshalls Holdings. A third company, HORDS Limited, a cocoa licensed buying firm was expected to have listed on the market on Tuesday.
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