Zimbabwe on track to setting up stock exchange for black-owned businesses

Plans by the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange to set up a secondary stock exchange for black-owned businesses is gathering pace with the bourse setting a US$250,000 minimum share capital threshold for firms.

The alternative market is part of a broader strategy to support the government’s economic empowerment policy.

High potential small and medium enterprises (SMEs) firms are the prime target of the proposed bourse.

The Zimbabwe Stock Exchange announced the threshold when it unveiled a set of listing requirements titled Zimbabwe Emerging Enterprising Market (ZEEM).

“The applicant must have share capital of at least US$250,000 (including reserves but excluding minority interests, and revaluations of assets and intangible assets that are not supported by a valuation by an independent professional expert acceptable to the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange prepared within the last six months),” the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange said in a statement.

Read more: The Africa Report