Camelot takes turn on Facts behind the Figures programme
Accra (Greater Accra) 06 July 2000
Mr Yeboa Amoa, Managing Director
of the Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE), on Wednesday called for measures that would
guarantee the value of foreign investments on the exchange to mitigate the
harsh effects of depreciation of the cedi.
"If this is done, there would
be a boost in the activities of the exchange," he said, in remarks at a
Facts Behind the Figures programme of the Ghana Stock Exchange.
Mr Amoa said most foreign
investors have had the values of their investments halved or part of it eroded
through the fast depreciation of the cedi against major currencies, adding:
"they must be protected not to lose their entire investments".
He said the current economic
difficulties Ghana is going through could be reversed if appropriate measures
were adopted to stabilise the situation, adding that it is the duty of all
Ghanaians to do all they could to jump-start the economy once again.
"The country has gone through
a lot of challenging situations in the past but it always managed to come out
of them unscathed."
Mr Amoa called for incentives such
as bonuses for local companies, which are export-oriented to enable them to
have the necessary resource base to expand while at the same time companies in
the import business should be discouraged through heavy taxes.
Mrs Elizabeth Joyce Villars,
Chairman and Managing Director of Camelot, noted that although the company
entered the exchange at a much volatile period during which the country was
going through economic downturn, it has never regretted doing so.
She said the listing of the
company has enabled it to expand operations into security printing and to
export to countries in Africa in response to increased competitions from local
manufacturers and importers.
The company last year exported 11
per cent of total turnover of cheques into the ECOWAS community.
Total profit for 1999 stood at 154
million cedis, up over 460 per cent more than the projected profit of 26.76
million.
Mrs Villars said the company was
able to achieve the result in spite of lower production output of 11,473
cartons compared to 13,466 in 1998, adding that value added products like
pre-printed and security prints for local and foreign markets had helped to
boost its performance.
Out of the 50 per cent value added
products, 15.1 per cent represented cheques out of which 2.4 per cent and 12.7
per cent was for the local and foreign markets respectively.
On the impact that the
depreciation of the cedi has had on the activities of the company, Mrs Villars
said the impact was minimal since the company stocks raw materials for three
months and also takes care of any change in the rate in the costing of raw
materials. Mrs Villars said in the absence of a paper mill, the company imports
about 90 per
cent of its paper requirements.
GRi../
Accra (Greater Accra) 05 July 2000
Accra Brewery Limited (ABL) and
Camelot (CLMT) gave the Ghana Stock Exchange a breather on Wednesday when they
gained 60 cedis and three cedis respectively to push the All-Share Index, the
key stock gauge, up to reverse the unimpressive run of the bourse.
The All-share index, which had
marked time a couple of times, ended trading firmer at 819.40, up 1.61 points
from 817.79 points on Monday.
Market capitalisation and the
change for the year to date equally registered marginal gains to close mid-week
trading at 3,569.41 billion cedis and 11.31 per cent respectively.
Despite the gains, trading
continued to be dominated by bearish sentiments with offers continually
outstripping demand.
On the broader market there were
two price changes - ABL gained 60 cedis to close trading at 600 while CMLT went
up by three cedis at 425 cedis. Out of the remaining 21 equities, 12 had
negative pressures on them while the remaining nine returned no pressure at
all.
As many as 11 equities sold
198,700 shares, nearly 50 times more than the 4,200 recorded on Monday. Bids
also shot up to 287, 600 from 85,700. Offers closed marginally at 2.3 million
up from 2.1 million.
Below are the closing prices of
listed equities in cedis:
ABL 600 +60
AGC 18,600
ALW 2,600
BAT 440
CFAO 38
EIC 1,880
FML 1,200
GBL 1,400
GCB 978
GGL 990
HFC 950
MGL 200
MLC 150
MOGL 17,500
PAF 300
PBC 520
PZ 800
SCB 22,000
SPPC 150
SSB 1,990
UNIL 1,845
UTCE 125
CMLT 425 +3
GRi../