Ashanti loses heavily for the first time after problems
Ashanti loses heavily for the first time after problems
Accra
(Greater Accra Region) 6 April 2000
Ashanti
Goldfields Company (AGC) on Wednesday lost heavily during trading on the Ghana
Stock Exchange after it announced that it had sold 50 per cent interest in its
Geita mines in Tanzania to AngloGold.
That was
also its first loss after it resolved a serious financial problem that
threatened its existence. The Company lost 100 cedis on its share price to
close mid-week trading at 18,600 cedis after remaining stable at 18,700 cedis
for more than four months.
AGC sold
only 350 shares from 4,050 offers but brokers have said that it is likely that
most shareholders would hold on to their shares in spite of the problems
because of the high value placed on gold. Ashanti's shares on the New York
Stock Exchange had dropped during the peak of the problems.
The Company
announced the signing of a non-binding agreement with AngloGold Limited, the
world's largest gold producer, for the sale of 50 per cent of Ashanti's shares
in the Geita project.
With the
agreement, gold production from the mine, excluding a proposed expansion
programme is expected to average approximately 500,000 ounces per annum during
the first five years of full production.
Three other
equities, including Aluworks Limited (ALW), which recorded a negative 40.5 per
cent on earnings per share, depreciated.
Despite
these, the All-Share Index of the Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE) made a modest gain
of 0.91 points to reach 764.01 points on the back of Ghana Commercial Bank
(GCB) and Home Finance Company (HFC). It had marked time on Monday at 763.10
points.
The change
in the year to date now stands at 3.78 per cent compared to more than negative
15 per cent recorded for the whole of 1999.
Volume of
shares offered made a slight recovery from Monday figure of 993,330 to
1,158,950 while shares traded moved from 15,400 to 16,250. Total bids decreased
by a small margin from 1,068,800 to 1,050,050. Market capitalisation went up to
3,238.41 billion cedis to 3,247.87 billion cedis.
In the
broader market, there were six price changes - four down and two up. AGC lost
100 cedis at 18,600 cedis while ALW lost 36 cedis to close at 2,450 cedis.
British American Tobacco Company (BAT) and SSB Bank (SSB) lost a cedi and two
cedis to end trading at 459 cedis and 1,998 cedis respectively.
Ghana
Commercial Bank (GCB) gained five cedis at 910 cedis with Home Finance Company
(HFC) making significant 30 cedis at 800 cedis. The following are the last
prices of listed equities in cedis:
ABL
500
AGC
18,600 -100
ALW
2,450 - 36
BAT
459 - 1
CFAO
40
EIC
1,880
FML 972
GBL
1,450
GCB
910 + 5
GGL
976
HFC
800 + 30
MGL
200
MLC
150
MOGL 14,550
PAF
294
PZ 800
SCB
19,500
SPPC
150
SSB
1,998 -
2
UNIL
1,848
UTC-E 125
CMLT
421
GRi…/