Letshego keeps shining at BSE

Group top trader for second consecutive month

Accrues P73.5m in August from a P67.2m in July

FNBB, Sefalana come after Letshego

BAKANG TIRO

editors@thepatriot.co.bw

Botswana Stock Exchange (BSE) listed Pan African micro lending business, Letshego Holdings Limited Group has continued to top trading charts at BSE for a second consecutive month in August after coming tops in July.

According to the BSE Market performance report for 1 January to 31 August 2021, the Top 3 traded companies during the period under review were Letshego (P73.5 million), the First National Bank of Botswana (P57.8 million) and the giant retail fast growing business Sefalana (P53.7 million) respectively.

The local bourse has indicated that the total turnover from these three companies accounted for 45.7% of total equity turnover with the leading counter Letshego accounting for 18.1% of total equity turnover.

“In comparison to the same period in 2020, the top 3 traded companies accounted for 51.9% of total equity turnover with the leading counter Letshego accounting for 25.4% (P122.7 Million) of the total equity turnover. Of the 30 listed companies, 14 depreciated in a share price, 10 appreciated in a share price while 6 experienced no share price change,” buttressed the BSE in its latest market performance report.

Furthemore, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Thapelo Tsheole’s led BSE said top gainer was Tlou with a 51.5% growth in share price followed by Seed Co and Letshego with gains of 45.9% and 42.7% respectively.

However, there were setbacks incurred as Chobe has experienced the biggest decline in share price of 21.5% followed by Turnstar and Sechaba with the declines of 20.0% and of19.6% respectively.

Micro lending titan, Letshego back to back record performance comes amid listed companies experiencing challenges brought about by the pandemic, in the back of the subdued domestic economic activity.

Letshego Group CEO Andrew Okai – while briefing the media recently on the Group interim financial results – said the digital strategy that the company has embarked on is turning out to be a key booster. Oozing with confidence, Okai said the digital transformation strategy will hugely grow the business.

“The LetsGo mall digital platform also forms the core part of the dgitilisation strategy as 77% of the customers on the LetsGo are all new. Digitilisation has driven the business resilience. Our first half results are strong, with profit growth above 20% in a challenging environment. We have made significant strides in enhancing our execution capabilities, enabling us to go live with our LetsGo digital platform across 10 countries well ahead of a plan,” said Okai at the time; buttressing that the Group is keen to diversify.

Letshego’s deposit portfolio almost doubled to P989million in the first half (H1 2020; P499m) spurred by the Group’s digitised payment capabilities (USSD, Cards, Agency & Community Commerce) and deepening strategic partnerships, particularly in Mozambique, Namibia, Ghana and Tanzania.

According to previous BSE market performance report for the period from 1 January to 31 July 2021, top 3 traded companies were Letshego (P67.2 Million), FNBB (P51.9 Million) and Sefalana (P50.1 Million) as well.

Meanwhile, the BSE in the period under review says local companies contributed 64.0% to total equity turnover or P259.3 million in monetary terms while local individuals contributed 6.9% or P27.9 million in monetary terms during the period under review.

Foreign companies contributed 23.0% or P93.2 million to total equity turnover while foreign individuals and brokers contributed 6.0% (P24.5 million) and a 0.1% (P0.2 million) to equity turnover respectively.

“The Exchange traded funds (ETFs) turnover thus far in 2021 has amounted to P70.9 million in a comparison to P98.7 million generated during the same period in 2020. In terms of the volume, the ETFs traded 408,345 units in 2021. The NewFunds and NewPlat ETF prices gained 12.8% and 12.9% respectively while NewGold ETF price declined by 3.6% so far in 2021,” the BSE said on ETFs. The value of bonds traded during the period under review was P1.7 Billion compared to P834.2 million traded during the same period in 2020.