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Copperbelt Energy Corporation Plc (CEC) shares price has made K4 massive gain, becoming supposedly the most valuable Lusaka Stock Exchange (LuSE) market stock.
CEC has been holding the position for about 10 weeks, from its lows of around 70 ngwee per share only a year ago.
CEC chief financial officer, Mutale Mukuka observed that the company’s current performance compared to only a year ago indicated that the market had priced in the risks that attended CEC from a sovereign and corporate perspective.
This is according to the CEC investor relations publication monitored by Zambia Monitor on Monday.
He said the company had assessed the market which he believed was the intrinsic value of the business and in the last few years, there were a couple of challenges such as the many court cases.
Mukuka said with the resolution of some of the challenges and the risks that were perceived or real.
But those investors have slowly priced in the sort of de-risked business into the valuation that you see on the Lusaka Securities Exchange, which is a significant improvement from the numbers that we saw earlier.
“Now, we are at a place where the price depicts the scenario of willing buyers and willing sellers”, Mukuka explained.
He said the restoration of contractual power supply and purchase arrangements with ZESCO Limited in April this year, after a two-year absence, bolstered market sentiment and contributed to the stock price rally.
In November, CEC announced a consent judgment entered with all other parties involved in the dispute concerning the increase of power tariffs by the industry regulator, Energy Regulation Board in 2014, and which matter the mining companies took to court.
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CEC floated 14 years ago, in an initial public offering that sold off 25 percent of its share capital with five percent reserved for its employees.
Managing director, Owen Silavwe also said the company continued to create value for over 4,000 ordinary Zambians that have shares in the company and can openly interrogate the business.
“Today, CEC has 4,000 retail investors and because of its listing, the company’s financials are open,” Silavwe said.
He ,therefore ,said they can take decisions to invest and divest out of this business.
“The people also have the ability to follow the investments that CEC is making, and its operations, and how those operations are actually evolving over time,” explained Silavwe.
He described CEC as a success story of the privatization dream of ensuring ordinary Zambians own stake in thriving assets that were previously owned by the defunct Zambia Consolidated Copper Mines.
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