Petroleum Sector Enters Ethiopia’s Capital Market as Yetebaberut Shares Registered

Yetebaberut Beherawut Petroleum has added the petroleum sector to the growing pool of companies whose securities are registered with Ethiopia’s capital-market regulator, as the country’s emerging securities framework begins to extend beyond banks and other financial institutions.

The Ethiopian Capital Market Authority approved Yetebaberut’s registration statement on September 30, registering 160,000 existing shares held by the company’s shareholders, according to a notice published by the regulator.

The registration places the petroleum distributor alongside banks, insurers and other non-financial companies whose securities have been registered by ECMA as it builds the regulatory infrastructure for Ethiopia’s developing capital market.

Yetebaberut was established in May 2004 by 21 founding shareholders with subscribed capital of 21 million birr. The company says its paid-up capital has since reached 800 million birr and that it is fully owned by Ethiopian nationals.

The company operates in petroleum-products distribution and says it has a 12.4 percent share of the ground-fuels and lubricants market across retail and commercial businesses, making it the fourth-largest petroleum company in the country by its own assessment. That market-share figure is company-reported.

The ECMA registration does not, however, amount to a public offering or a listing on the Ethiopian Securities Exchange. The Authority’s notice specifically says it was issued to notify the public of the registration and should not be interpreted as an endorsement of an offer, an offer to sell securities or a solicitation to buy them.

Yetebaberut’s inclusion nevertheless adds another type of corporate issuer to Ethiopia’s developing capital-market system, where registration activity has so far been concentrated heavily among financial institutions. The move gives the regulator’s securities-registration framework a foothold in the petroleum distribution industry, one of the country’s established private-sector businesses.

Source: FSX Business News