SecZim approves new fund listing on FINSEC

THE Securities and Exchange Commission of Zimbabwe (SECZ) has approved the listing of Smartvest High Income Fund (Shif) on the Financial Securities Exchange (Finsec) Mutual Funds Board.

The Shif is the product of a collaboration between Finsec Lincoln Capital and Smartvest Wealth Managers. The fund is denominated in US dollars, offering a fixed-income type of security to investors.

The Shif provides an innovative investment option designed to deliver attractive returns through investing in short-term secured money market instruments backed by quality loan portfolios advanced to small and medium enterprises (SME’s) sponsored by a microfinance institution usually with returns ranging from a minimum of 12 percent to a maximum of 18 percent.

SecZim chief executive, Mr Anymore Taruvinga, said the listing of Shif demonstrates the continued growth of Zimbabwe’s capital markets as more products evolve.

“We have recently approved the fund’s listing on the Finsec main board and they are working on the modalities to complete the process of listing,” he said.

Shif provides potential investors with a unique opportunity to tap into the booming small to medium enterprises (SME) sector through a secured facility.

Mr Taruvinga said the fund would address challenges of capital raising and enhance the participation of SMEs and individuals in capital markets. Zimbabwe’s capital market continues to evolve and through the digitalisation of trading, the market keeps transforming and building capacity to offer a wide variety of new products.

The fund is expected to address problems faced by SMEs in accessing capital from financiers, as its key objective is to provide the sector access to the much-needed funding for expansion and retooling.

The SME facilities will be secured through insurance and immovable properties and subscriptions to the fund are believed to have started yesterday and will be done through the C-Trade platform.

C-Trade, an automated trading platform enables investors both local and foreign to purchase securities from anywhere in the world anytime using mobile devices.

Investors will have the option to redeem units as cash or sell the units on the secondary market and the unit holders will be paid interest on the maturity of their units.

Finsec provides an electronic platform that formalises marginalised market segments and brings together all alternative trading activities in a central and organised market place.

The platform therefore facilitates electronic trading of a wide variety of securities and enhances financial inclusion by enabling all investors access to alternative capital market investment options that are not offered by traditional exchanges.

Recently, Finsec admitted Property X as a quoted security on the Mutual Fund Board and the fund provides access to a “pay-as-you-go” property acquisition option to both individuals and institutional investors for optimal deployment of their financial resources as and when they become available.

Old Mutual Zimbabwe Limited (Omzil) became the first company to trade its empowerment shares on Finsec, on December 1, 2016.-chronilc