Botswana is pitching its stock exchange as a gateway to Southern African institutional capital as it seeks a secondary listing of Dangote’s $20 billion refinery.
GAZETTE REPORTER
The Botswana Stock Exchange (BSE) is stepping up efforts to position itself as a regional capital-raising hub, placing Botswana’s macroeconomic stability, regulatory framework and institutional liquidity at the centre of its pitch to major African companies.
At the centre of the campaign is Nigerian industrialist Aliko Dangote and his $20 billion Dangote Petroleum Refinery.
President Duma Boko, Vice President and Finance Minister Ndaba Gaolathe, and BSE Chairperson Neo Mooki have been involved in discussions aimed at securing a secondary listing of the refinery on the BSE.
Gaolathe led a working visit to Lagos in April, where he toured Dangote’s 650,000-barrels-per-day refinery and 3-million-metric-ton fertiliser plant. The visit was followed by a capital markets and institutional investors roundtable in Gaborone.
Mooki said the BSE was ready to accommodate such a listing. “The Botswana market is ready to accommodate the listing, with the necessary regulatory frameworks already in place,” she said at the recent BSE Capital Markets and Institutional Investors Roundtable.
Capital Gateway
Mooki framed the proposed listing as part of a broader effort to deepen African ownership of African businesses.
“Africa is not poor. Africa is unmonetised,” she said, arguing that capital-market infrastructure could convert economic value into ownership and wealth.
She said Botswana’s own development demonstrated the importance of local participation in major economic assets.
“We did not become wealthy because we found diamonds. Others found diamonds and remain poor. We became wealthy because we insisted on owning a share of what happened on our own soil.”
Addressing Dangote directly, Mooki said Botswana was not seeking to replace Nigeria as the company’s principal market. “We are not asking to compete with Nigeria. Nigeria’s success is Africa’s success, and the Nigerian Exchange should be, and will be, the home of that listing.”
But she added: “We do not want to be included afterwards. We want to be there on day one.”
SADC Link
BSE Chief Executive Officer Aupa Monyatsi said internationalisation was one of the exchange’s strategic pillars.
Through the Committee of SADC Stock Exchanges, he said, a Botswana listing could draw on the capacity of the wider region. He said the exchange was connected to liquidity pools beyond Botswana while remaining anchored in Africa.
Monyatsi said structures were also being developed to allow individuals to participate without opening brokerage accounts in Nigeria or managing individual foreign-exchange hedges.
Regional Pool
Collen Tapfumaneyi, chairperson of the Committee of SADC Stock Exchanges, said Southern Africa was moving towards a more integrated investment market.
He said the region could connect an estimated $1.86 trillion in institutional capital to investment opportunities across Southern Africa.
Under a proposed interconnectivity model, Botswana would host a platform allowing investors across participating markets to access securities through a single entry point.
“We’re talking of consolidation. We’re talking of integration. We’re talking of aggregation to ensure that Botswana becomes a window into the vast marketplace that Southern Africa provides.”
Potential Payoff
A Dangote listing could give Botswana’s pension funds and institutional investors access to a major African industrial company while strengthening the BSE’s role as a regional financial intermediary.
President Boko has described Dangote’s industrial expansion as a model for African-led development.
“African investors, African thinkers, African intellectuals, and African entrepreneurs are responsible… for the development… of the African continent,” he said.