The Western Cape government opened its first stock exchange, Cape Town Sock Exchange to help companies in mother city and the rest of African continent to raise capital and trade among themselves. The newly established Cape Town Stock Exchange opened on Thursday pledging to lure firms from across the continent with listing costs that are a third of the JSE’s.
TWK Agri Pty was the first company to trade on the Cape Town Stock Exchange, which was previously called 4 Africa Exchange Pty.
Bloomberg reports, Cape Town Stock Exchange and other rivals such as A2X and ZarX have been using technology to cut listing costs in a bid to lure business.
The Cape Town Stock Exchange’s CEO Eugene Booysen said it would like to become the Nasdaq of Africa, able to attract companies looking to raise capital in Kenya, Nigeria, Ghana and others.
Booysen said, “we reduce the cost, risk, time and complexity for companies looking to list,” said Booysen. “This, and owning our technology, enables us to target small and medium firms of between R25 million to R2 billion market capitalization.”
Other than the JSE, the Cape Town Stock Exchange, will be the only bourse that is able to offer companies equity and debt trading, said Booysen.
The Cape Town Stock Exchange is also in talks with other African bourses to share its technology offering and work on a revenue share basis, added Booysen.
Bloomberg reports, The exchange, where companies with a total market value of R7 billion traded under its previous avatar, estimates shares valued at R50 billion will trade on the bourse by mid 2023.
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