The Sunday Mail
Kudakwashe Mhundwa
Business Reporter
Drummond Investments, a diversified industrial group, intends to list on the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange (ZSE) within the next five years, riding on the success of its agro-business and hospitality divisions.
According to group chief executive officer Mr Ken Drummond, the firm is an active player in the agriculture (poultry and milling) and tourism sectors.
“I am hoping in five years’ time we want to start putting the mechanics in place to list and go public. I would like very much for our group of companies to be listed on the stock exchange and to sell a sizable chunk of shares off because that is a way I believe we can have continuity in the success of our business,” said Mr Drummond.
ZSE last witnessed an initial public offering (IPO) listing in 2016 when Getbucks came on board.
It was the first listing in nine years.
Investors have been reluctant to list their shares and publicly trade on the ZSE given the generally difficult macro-economic environment.
However, ZSE has witnessed several listings by way of introduction with the unbundling of Seedco, Econet and Innscor, among other companies.
Mr Drummond said while business returns have remained steady and safe despite market volatility, the group’s divisions are looking at making strategic investments in the next five years.
He said the group, which mostly focuses on milling, is looking at setting up additional milling units in different districts across the country.
“Our commercial division, which is Sunset Marketing, is mainly in the milling business. It is a milling company that meals roller-meal and manufactures stock feed — from chicken feeds, rabbit feeds, dairy feeds and beef fattening feeds for cattle — and it is situated in Belmont industrial area in Bulawayo.
“We haven’t had problems being faced by other milling companies because we have always kept ourselves well stocked with raw materials.
“We are looking at setting up milling industries, but we will concentrate on the districts of southern Zimbabwe. I think the northern part of Zimbabwe is better developed than the southern part, so Sunset is taking the opportunity to develop areas that need the development more,” he said.
The group operates a game-safari business in the Lowveld, which Mr Drummond says is operating well as bookings are made four years in advance.
“The fourth division is our tourism division, which is all foreign-visitor based. We have a very well-established business in the big-game safari business.
“We, as a group, are looking at constructing hotels and also airports. We need better infrastructure to enable light planes to move the clients around because moving a client, for example, from the south east Lowveld to Victoria Falls is a difficult exercise,” he said.
According to the Visitor Exit Survey (VES) Report released by the Zimbabwe National Statistics Agency (Zimstat), Harare, Bulawayo and Victoria Falls are the most visited places; hence, the need to increase geographical dispersion of visitors in the country and connectivity of destinations.
VES also showed that there is need to capacitate Air Zimbabwe to service international routes (the high-spending markets), especially key source markets like Europe and the Americas.
