The African Business magazine has released this year’s top-250 African companies survey, which highlights the overall carnage in African share valuations over the last year – and Ghana made only three entries.
Ghana’s first entry was chalked by Tullow Oil, in 39th position with a market capitalisation of US$2,888million. Standard Chartered Bank came second after dropping from its previous 188th position to 155th, with a market capitalisation of US$439million; while Ghana Commercial Bank (GCB) came third, claiming the 243rd position on the continent with a market capitalisation of US$205million.
West African neighbour Nigeria made two entries into the top-30: Dangote Cement – 21st position, and MTN Nigeria – 23rd position. Nigeria in total made 19 entries, which is the highest by a West African country.
Generally, South Africa came top with 22 entries in the top-30 and a total of 100 entries in the top-250. Egypt placed second with 41 entries in general, while Morocco was third with 30 entries.
The survey, which ranks African or Africa-focused companies listed on public securities exchanges based on their market capitalisation or performance in financial statements, has noticed a 20 percent drop in total market value of the top-250 companies compared to last year’s figures.
It is worth noting that the data relates to listed companies only, and dual listings on African exchanges were excluded.
Speaking on the report’s impact, the CEO-African Growth Partners Limited, Tom Minney, said: “As African leaders slammed the brakes on economic activities and put their countries or cities into lockdown to block spread of the coronavirus, businesses and jobs were collapsing into intensive care and could be among the biggest casualties of the health crisis.
“The total value for all 250 firms on the list this year is US$597.7billion. This is down by 20 percent from last year’s total of US$748.2-billion.”
He further emphasised that it is too early to say what damage the pandemic will cause to companies’ future profits – a key basis on which investors value securities and set the market capitalisation. However, an early indicator of the cutback scale in Africa is the number of lost jobs. The report was released in May 2020, and is based on analysis of data gathered ending April 2020.
