By Our Report
In line with global trends, 2015 was a challenging year for African capital markets in the wake of market volatility and the emergence of renewed global economic uncertainty in the latter part of the year, while the first half resulted in the highest levels of both equity capital markets transactions and proceeds raised in the past five years.
Audit firm PwC has released its 2015 Africa Capital Markets Watch publication. The report analyses equity and debt capital markets transactions that took place between 2011 and 2015 on exchanges throughout Africa, as well as transactions by African companies on international exchanges. Equity Capital Markets (ECM) transactions included in the analysis comprise capital raising activities, whether Initial Public Offerings (IPOs) or Further Offers (FOs), by African companies on exchanges worldwide, as well as those made by non-African companies on African exchanges. Debt Capital Markets (DCM) transactions analyzed include debt funding raised by African companies and public institutions.
Nicholas Ganz, PwC Africa Capital Markets Leader says, “At 31st December 2015, African exchanges had a market capitalization of about US$ 1 trillion, with 23% of this value residing on exchanges outside of South Africa. Though statistics cannot be interpreted in isolation, certain metrics commonly used to analyze global market performance, such as the market capitalization-to-GDP ratio, suggest that untapped value remains in Africa’s capital markets.
