Mauritius Market Watch: Week Ended 8th May, 2015

Port Louis, Mauritius (Capital Markets in Africa):- The official indices remained almost unchanged this week. The Semdex was flat at 1955.83 points while the SEM-10 index increased slightly by 0.1% 371.39 points respectively. Overall market turnover amounted to Rs367.0m (USD 10.5m), geared towards MCBG and SBMH which contributed 78.7% to weekly turnover. Foreign investors were net sellers to the tune of Rs142.1m.

MCB Group saw a total volume of 0.922 million shares traded over the week and the stock closed higher at MUR 203.25 (+1.0%). The banking stock traded on a weekly volume weighted average price (VWAP) of Rs202.61 and net foreign sales amounted to MUR 101.3 million. SBM Holdings Mauritius which traded ex-div on Tuesday fell to MUR 0.93 before picking up again to MUR 0.94 on Thursday and closing the week at that level. The stock traded on a weekly VWAP of MUR 0.93 with overall volume of 109.9 million shares exchanged. Foreign investors were net sellers on SBM Holdings also, to the tune of MUR 54.6 million. Financial company CFS Mauritius closed at MUR 8.70 on Monday and remained at that level on Tuesday where it saw significant exchanges of 1.4 million shares. The stock picked up on Thursday to MUR 8.72 and closed higher at MUR 8.78 on Friday. CFS lost 1.1% on the week on total volume of 1.5 million shares. Insurance companies Mauritius Union Assurance and SWAN Life closed the week on a positive note, gaining 8.1% and 4.3% respectively.

ENL Commercial was the only gainer on the commerce counter, up by 0.5% to MUR 22.30 on 12,900 shares. Vivo Energy Mauritius and Innodis Group Mauritius were the weakest performers on the counter, losing 2.2% and 0.9% to MUR 132.00 and MUR 52.50 respectively. IBL Group Mauritius closed the week unchanged at MUR 115.00 and saw total volume of 64,000 shares. At the level of industrials, Go Life International tumbled by 25.0% to USD 0.03 on 50,000 shares traded. Gamma Civic Mauritius lost 1.5% to MUR 32.00 on 14,100 shares exchanged.

Caudan was the top performer on the investment counter, rallying 5.3% to MUR 1.40 on 641,500 shares exchanged. POLICY grew by 2.0% to MUR 7.98 on 157,400 shares. Rogers rose by 1.4% to MUR 29.60 with total volume of 77,000 shares traded. CIEL edged higher by 1.2% to MUR 6.90 on significant volume of 1.7m shares.

NIT was the weakest performer on the counter, down by 4.3% to MUR 45.00 on only 1,000 shares. Alteo Sugar Limited Mauritius declined by 3.7% to MUR 31.30 with total volume of 80,300 shares exchanged. United Docks lost 2.3% to MUR 64.00 on only 102 shares. Terra fell by 0.8% to MUR 31.20 on 3,000 shares.

ASL maintained downward trend, losing 4.3% to MUR 42.00 on 950 shares exchanged. Lottotech Mauritius gained 0.7% to MUR 5.98 on 263,800 shares traded. New Mauritius Hotel Limited was the only decliner among hotels, down by 1.2% to MUR 60.25 on 29,800 shares exchanged. LUX closed unchanged at MUR 58.50 and saw 72,500 shares traded. SUN was up by 1.3% to MUR 39.50 after releasing excellent set of results for the quarter ended 31 Mar 2015. The Group’s PAT amounted to MUR 83.0m compared to MUR 22.2 million for the corresponding quarter last year.

Air Mauritius which resumed trading after 04th May’s halt, reached its minimum daily trading limit of 20% on 05th May to finish at Rs11.05. The stock finally concluded the week at MUR 11.04, losing 17.4% w-o-w on overall volume of 328,000 shares traded. Media reported that the national airline would report losses of Rs800m due to another fuel hedge.

Property Company Bluelife finished lower at Rs 4.86 (-2.8%) on 12.1k shares, whilst Omnicane fell by 1.4% to Rs 73.00 with overall volume of 328.9k shares traded.

The DEM market index gained 0.1% to 201.42 points on a weekly turnover of Rs7.5m, driven by ENL Ltd (P). The latter saw 72.7k shares exchanged at Rs29.50 (+0.3 %). The insurance stock SWAN Life gained 4.7% to Rs890.00 on 2.2k shares. Among industrials, SODIA was the weakest performer, declining by 5.7% to Rs0.33 on 377.1k shares traded. Bychemex also lost 4.7% to close at Rs10.10 on only 600 shares. On the other hand, LFL (O) gained 0.8% to Rs25.50 on 200 shares. On the investment counter, UTIN dropped by 0.4% to Rs11.95 on 106.2k shares while EUDCOS rose up to Rs15.80(+1.9%) on 29.9k shares. CIEL Textile lost 1.4% to Rs35.50 on 19.0k shares exchanged. SIT gave up 2.6% to close at Rs15100.00 on only 3 shares.