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The Stock Exchange of Mauritius (SEM) was highly commended by the Ai Index Awards jury for the Africa investor (Ai) Index Awards. The Ai Index Awards were presented on June 8, 2007 at the London Stock Exchange to reward Africa’s best performing stock exchanges, listed companies, investment banks, research teams and fund managers. The ceremony attracted leading fund managers, investment banks, executives of Stock Exchanges, CEO's of African listed companies and members of Africa's financial community.
This year’s entries for the 7 selected categories are the Best African Stock Exchange, Best African IPO, Best Investment Bank in Africa, Best Africa Research Team, Best Africa Fund Manager, Best Ai 100 company, and the Best Ai 40 company.
The “Best African Stock Exchange” Category, strove to look at the performances of exchanges, the ability of the exchanges to provide accurate real time information to investors, how technology is being used to facilitate trading and how the exchanges are working to include smaller companies and protect minority shareholders. The winner for the best African Stock Exchange went to the JSE Securities Exchange, and the Stock Exchange of Mauritius was highly commended by the jury panel for its No. 2 ranking position. In identifying the winner, the jury also looked at the absolute performance of African stock markets between 1 April 2006 - 31 March 2007, quality of website, responsiveness of the communication department, clarity of listing rules and requirements, openness of the financial services sector, quality of trading system and real-time trading facilities, to name but a few.
st st The other Ai Index Awards Winners are as follows:- Best Performing Ai 100 company: Egyptian Iron & Steel
- Best Performing Ai 40 company: Kenya Commercial Bank
- Best Africa Research Team: Databank
- Best Africa Fund Manager: Emerging Markets Management L.L.C
- Best African IPO: Dangote Sugar Refinery
- Best African Investment Bank: Citi Group
The Ai Index Awards constituted an excellent opportunity to showcase to the international financial community the progress achieved by the financial services institutions in many African countries. The highly commended status of the SEM and the attainment of the No. 2 position in the ‘Best African Stock Exchange’ category, testifies the progress achieved on the operational and regulatory front and can only strengthen international investors’ confidence in our market.
Another major announcement made during the ceremony was the launching of the first 100% Africa-dedicated Hedge fund by Scipion Capital Ltd. This fund, initially of a size of USD 100 Million, will track the listed stocks of nine African stock exchanges, including the Stock Exchange of Mauritius. This initiative constitutes yet another confirmation of the growing interest shown by international institutional investors for African stock markets.
