Business
West African Stocks That Have Great Potential In 2014
Management has guided the company deftly since the return of political stability. Customer deposits increased 27 percent in 2012, and the bank grew its lending book by nearly a third. The deployment of this extra low-cost capital powered an 81-percent profit gain during the first six months of 2013. It presently trades at 2.8 times its 2012 book value and 16.2 times trailing earnings. The dividend yield, which is based on its 2012 payout, is an attractive 4.3 percent.
Total – Cote d’Ivoire
The next company worth a look is fueling all the cars that sit in traffic jams on Abidjan’s bridges. Total-CI, a subsidiary of the French oil giant, is a major downstream oil marketer with 140 filling stations and a 28-percent share of the market. It’s also a major supplier of LPG, controlling 33 percent of the market.
Volumes of petrol sold increased 15 percent through the first half of 2013, which bodes well for profits. It presently trades at 15-to-16 times trailing earnings, and earnings are expected to nearly double for the full year. The shares currently yield 5 percent.
SOLIBRA
Do you like frontier African breweries but balk at their high price tags? If so, it might be worth checking out SOLIBRA, Cote d’Ivoire’s largest beverage company. The company has the rights to distribute Coca-Cola and Guinness throughout the country, and it also brews numerous local favorites. The company’s sales surged nearly 15 percent in the first half of 2013. It now trades at a P/E of about 16 and yields just shy of 3 percent, but 2013 full year earnings and a dividend increase are anticipated very soon.
Onatel
I’ll conclude with one bonus pick from Burkina Faso. Onatel, not to be confused with its much-larger Senegalese peer, Sonatel, is Burkina Faso’s largest telecom company. It grew earnings 67 percent in 2013 on the back of extending its 3G network, a mobile payment system, and cost reductions.
It now trades between 10-to-11 times earnings and boasts a dividend yield of 9 percent. You should factor in an extra degree of political risk to this stock, as there have been peaceful protests recently against the rule of Blaise Compaoré, president of Burkina Faso since 1987.
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