By KENNEDY MUPESENI –

MARKET capitalisation in the last quarter ended December 31, 2013 went up by 17 per cent at more than K58 billion.

The Lusaka Stock Exchange (LuSE) All Share Index (LASI) closed the period at 5,300.1 points, 43 per cent higher than for the same period in 2012.

Speaking at the joint Security Exchange Commission (SEC) and LuSE quarterly media brief in Lusaka yesterday LuSE general manager Brian Tembo said the market capitalisation on the stock market recorded K58,188,000,000 representing 17 per cent which he said was significant.

Mr Tembo said the trade turnover increased significantly by 133 per cent compared to the same period for the previous year.

“This was due to the increase in volumes of shares by Prima Re-insurance after all rights issue where a total of 6,612,424 shares were taken up by existing shareholders,” Mr Tembo said.

Regarding foreign portfolio inflows, he said there was an increase by 29 per cent over the period compared to the same period in 2012.

About 24 per cent of the shares transacted during the quarter were from foreign transactions which were a notable increase from the corresponding quarter of 2012 when 4.5 per cent of shares transacted were attributed to foreign portfolio investors.

At the same briefing SEC executive director Wala Chabala urged banks which were failing to raise minimum capital requirement to consider listing on the stock market to meet the minimum capital requirement.

Dr Chabala gave an example of Prima Re-insurance which he said had raised K20 million to re-structure its balance sheet in order to increase the share capital to levels that allowed for increased reinsurance business volumes.

“Prima Re-insurance have raised K20 million since it returned to the stock market to a rights issue on October 22 2013,” he said.