Johannesburg, South Africa, 20 April – The Angolan Stock Exchange has the potential to become the third largest in Africa, after those of South Africa and Nigeria, according to a study published Monday by financial company Imara Angola.

The market capitalisation of Angola’s stocks and derivatives market could reach US$36 billion, according to estimates from the Angolan subsidiary of Imara, a multinational financial company headquartered in Botswana.

“With the financial crisis being overcome, we expect that opening the Angolan stock exchange may happen this year,” said the chief executive of Imara Angola, Anthony Lopes Pinto.

The study outlined two scenarios for the stock exchange, with one analysis based more on macroeconomic factors and the other on floating part of the capital of up to 14 companies on the exchange.

In the first scenario the basis was an Angolan gross domestic product (GDP) of US$84.9 billion and took into account the average market capitalisation of African exchanges against GDP (42 percent), which led to the calculation of US$36 billion in market capitalisation.

This amount is only exceeded by current stock exchanges in South Africa and Nigeria.

In a more modest scenario, the study looked into the 14 companies that could be the first to be part of the Angola stock exchange, which would lead to a market capitalisation of US$11.28 billion.

The 14 companies include 10 banks, two beer makers and two telecom operators.

“We believe that this (14 companies) is only the tip of the iceberg as there are at least 50 companies that have been identified as candidates for initial public offerings (IPOs),” said Lopes Pinto. (macauhub)