Show me the money

20 Dec, 2020 - 00:12 0 Views
Show me the money

The Sunday Mail

Tatenda  Tawonezvi

Drop-in an ocean!
Did you know the stock market value across the world is over US$90 trillion, versus US$142 trillion global GDP. This clearly shows we are a drop in an ocean not just Zimbabwe, but the whole of Africa. DRop-in an ocean!

If you consider the visual capitalist world stock market map, which ZSE doesn’t even show — this is not to scare us but to challenge us to always think bigger in our policies, innovation within the local stock market noting there is a bigger market out there than allowing our self-centred ego to crush us when we are at the bottom of the pyramid in the global economy.

Let’s come together and build something that the world can also admire. With that, our closing market cap for last week was $243 billion (US$2,96 billion as per the official exchange rate).

Over the week, 65 million shares worth $468 million exchanged hands to cumulative 277 million shares worth $3,4 billion exchanging hands to-date.

The winner for the week is Art Corporation which gained 61,54 percent on 56 700 shares that exchanged hands — although the shares which exchanged hands were a tiny $58 000 it’s backed by fundamentals as Art Corporation had a good yearly performance anchored by growth in batteries (+17 percent) and timber. The worst performer was Zimplow which was down by 18,03 percent on 1 million shares worth $4 million.

Out — industrialisation, in — digital economy

It’s all in the numbers, either we encourage higher population or we simply tap into the global economy and today it’s even simplified through the digital economy.  As Africa, yes we missed the industrial revolution which has shaped the new world. Are we also going to miss the venture capital phase?

I remember consulting one company in Zimbabwe; it was really a struggle to align everyone to embrace the new economy “digital economy” into their strategy — this was well before Covid-19, by now they could be leaders in this space. Yes, in Africa an average person uses about 50mb/month versus 3 000mb/month in the UK but soon we will catch on.

Once Africa moves from 50mb/month to say 1000mb/month, the digital economics will start to change significantly and we might be a few months away — you can imagine the opportunities at an average data consumption of just 1 000mb/month.

As a nation, the sooner we realise that we are all better off in a US$100 billion economy than in a US$10 billion economy, the more we will align our drive towards re-building Zimbabwe.

Venture capital right now is shaping the world; there are more start-ups and companies coming from the venture capital world that are driving the world forward.

Most didn’t even start with huge capital base. Let’s take Facebook for example — the first investment was US$2 000 and a further US$36 000 from Mark and Eduaro followed by Peter Thiel’s US$500 000 investment for 10,2 percent and as they say, the rest is history — listed companies even in Zimbabwe could afford this early on investment.

The venture capital amount evolved initially most ZSE listed companies or private wealthy individuals who can afford.

We just need to put thrust on learning the venture capital industry and start to roll out some venture capital focused seed funds well instead of buying expensive cars which are liabilities anyway.

Am sure as we roll out the funding aspect, we will start to attract more and more young talent versus changing money etc.

This will help us get leverage on the global market and feed into the greater venture capital industry.

Already the likes of Nigeria and Kenya are making significant strides into this.

 

Tatenda Tawonezvi Ms Applied Finance (Monash Australia), B.ComFin (UNSW-Australia) writes in his personal capacity and views expressed are his own.

 

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