Ethiopian Lender Sidama Bank Lists on Stock Exchange

Ethiopian lender Sidama Bank has joined the country’s emerging public equity market, becoming the latest financial institution to list on the Ethiopian Securities Exchange as the country develops a formal market for publicly traded companies.

The bank’s shares were admitted to the exchange’s Main Market on September 28 under the trading symbol SIDAX, following its completion of regulatory and listing requirements set by the Ethiopian Capital Market Authority and the Ethiopian Securities Exchange.

The listing gives Sidama Bank’s shareholders access to a regulated secondary market and places the lender within a framework requiring greater disclosure, transparency and corporate accountability.

The move also adds another banking institution to Ethiopia’s developing equity market, where the authorities are seeking to create channels for companies to raise long-term capital and give investors access to listed businesses.

Sidama Bank began as a microfinance institution before transitioning into commercial banking. Its listing represents another stage in that development, according to Yodit Kassa Waka, chief executive of the Ethiopian Securities Exchange.

“Sidama Bank’s journey from its roots in microfinance to becoming a commercial bank, and now joining the Ethiopian Securities Exchange, is a remarkable story of institutional evolution and growth,” she said at a ceremony held at the exchange’s trading floor in Addis Ababa.

Yodit said the bank’s decision to list was also an indication of growing participation in Ethiopia’s securities market and commended its commitment to transparency and accountability.

Representatives from the Ethiopian Capital Market Authority, the National Bank of Ethiopia, Sidama Bank’s board and management, investors, market participants and development partners attended the listing ceremony.

The Ethiopian Securities Exchange said Sidama Bank’s entry would expand the range of investment opportunities available through the market and add to the pool of listed companies participating in Ethiopia’s organised securities market.

The listing comes as Ethiopia builds the institutional infrastructure for a capital market intended to mobilise long-term domestic and foreign investment. The development of an organised equity market is also expected to provide companies with alternatives to bank financing while giving investors new avenues to hold shares in Ethiopian businesses.

Source: FSX Business News