Arrival of BUA Foods provides Nigerian Stock Exchange with massive bounce allowing shares to rise to year high

SHARE prices escalated on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) yesterday as the arrival of newly admitted player BUA Foods gave trading a huge bounce allowing stocks to rise to a one year high.

Overall, stocks of local companies rose by 1% as the quantity of shares traded surged, helped by huge transactions in the shares of BUA Foods, which contributed 81.2% of the traded volume. Yesterday, the food company marked its arrival with a 10% jump in share price to N44 after listing 18bn units of its common stock by introduction.

Airtel Africa, BUA Foods and NGX Group led the charge, with the NGX Oil and Gas Index providing the most support at sector level, rising by 3.12%. Market breadth, an indicator of investors’ sentiment towards trade, closed was positive as 22 advancers emerged, relative to 17 gainers.

Overall, the all-share index rose by 429.97 basis points to 43,476.75, while market capitalisation jumped to N22.64trn and year-to-date, the index was up by 1.78%. Airtel Africa led gainers, appreciating by 10% to close at N1,050.50, while BUA Cement grew by 10% to end trade at N4.40 and Oando went up by 9.73% to N4.85.

Majority-owned by Africa’s sixth richest man, Abdul Samad Rabiu with a current net worth of $4.6bn according to Forbes’s, BUA Foods’ offerings encompass manufacturing flour, pasta, rice, sugar and edible oils. Among other things, the company is looking to start off the production of 200,000 tonnes of white fortified premium quality this year and complete an expansion project in flour milling and pasta in Port Harcourt come June.