ZSEH races to lure new listings

CLOUDINE MATOLA

The Zimbabwe Stock Exchange Holdings (ZSEH) is stepping up efforts to attract new listings and broaden participation in the country’s capital markets as it seeks to deepen liquidity and bring more indigenous businesses into the formal investment system, Business Times can report.

The exchange is prioritising new listings, particularly on the Victoria Falls Stock Exchange (VFEX), while seeking to draw more retail and diaspora investors into the market, ZSEH chief executive Justin Bgoni said on the sidelines of the group’s analyst briefing.

“The big thing for us is we are going to work hard to get new listings, especially on the Victoria Falls Stock Exchange. I think that is the first thing that we want to do,” Bgoni said.

The strategy reflects a broader push by the exchange to expand its investor base beyond institutional players and encourage greater participation by individuals and locally owned businesses.

“We want to increase the trading that happens on the platform, especially from retail participants, diaspora and everything,” Bgoni said.

“We want to get more people interested in our market. Besides the traditional people that list on our exchange, we want very much to have indigenous business people listing on our exchange. I think that is a big part.”

The ZSEH is also racing to operationalise the Zimbabwe Entrepreneurship Exchange (ZEEX), a new platform aimed at providing smaller and growing businesses with greater access to capital markets.

Work on the platform has already begun, with the exchange targeting completion by the end of the year.

“The last one is obviously to get our new baby working, which is the ZEEX. So we have started to work on that one and we are hoping that by the end of the year, we will be done with that,” Bgoni said.

The push comes as Zimbabwe’s equity markets have delivered substantial gains, strengthening investor returns and potentially improving the appeal of listed securities to both domestic and foreign investors.

Bgoni said the combined performance of the ZSE and VFEX had risen by more than 100% over the previous year, creating significant gains for investors.

“The first thing that made us happy is that the market itself did well. If you combine ZSE and VFEX, it is up more than 100% compared to last year, which means that people are much wealthier than they were before we invested in our markets,” he said.

The strong market performance is particularly significant for institutional investors such as pension funds, which rely on capital markets to preserve and grow long-term savings.

For the second half of the year, ZSEH expects revenue to remain resilient despite an anticipated normalisation in trading activity.

The exchange expects new admissions, corporate transactions and wider participation across its product offering to help offset any moderation in trading-related income.

The group’s financial position has also strengthened. Cash generated and cash equivalents rose to US$2.27m during the period, from US$390,000 in December 2025.

Operating expenditure increased to US$3.17m from US$3m in the comparative period.

Revenue rose 39% to US$4.97m from US$3.56m previously, underlining the group’s improving financial performance as it expands its role in Zimbabwe’s capital markets.