Simbisa listing fails to excite market

Simbisa Brands, the Quick Service Restaurant (QSR) arm of Innscor Holdings, started trading on the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange as a separate entity yesterday, dominating activity but failed to drag the market out of its slump on a day when no counter traded in the positive.

Simbisa debuted at 12 cents, rose to 15.1 cents and closed the day at 14.32 cents. A total of 4.819 million shares valued at $643 254 were traded, about 93 percent of the day’s total trades in terms of volume.

It becomes the second of Innscor’s business units to list independently after Padenga Holdings in November, 2010.

The Industrial index retreated 0.53 points to settle at 129.45 points, dragged down by negative trades in big caps.

Insurance giant Old Mutual Zimbabwe lost four cents to close at 216 cents while telecomms group Econet shed a cent to 25 cents and Zimpapers  dropped by 0.3 cents — 37 percent of its total value — to 0.5 cents.

Sugar refiner Star Africa was 0.2 cents weaker at 0.8 cents.

BAT, Delta, Meikles, Padenga, Zimre Property were unchanged at 11.9 cents, 81 cents, 10 cents, eight cents and 1.2 cents in that order.

Week on week, the industrial index lost 1.38 points.

The Mining index was flat at 22.33 points. Bindura, Falgold, Hwange and RioZim maintained previous price levels at 1.3 cents, 0.5 cents, 3.4 cents and 10.4 cents.

On a weekly basis, the index shade 1.24 points.-The Source

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