ZCCM Investments Holdings Plc (MLZAM) is under pressure from minority shareholders to boost transparency in the management of Zambia’s state-controlled mining-investment company and list on a regulated stock market.
Private investors, who hold 12.4 percent of Lusaka-based ZCCM-IH, are trying to install a representative on the board to improve corporate governance, Philippe Taussac, a France-based private investor, said in an interview in Zambia’s capital, Lusaka. Some minority shareholders want ZCCM-IH to trade on London’s Alternative Investment Market to boost liquidity, increase the share price and force the company to meet specific disclosure procedures, Taussac said on May 22.
The government of Zambia, Africa’s biggest copper producer, owns the rest of the company that has stakes in the local units of Glencore Xstrata Plc (GLEN) and Vedanta Resources Plc. (VED) Prior to privatization of the industry in the 1990s, ZCCM owned and operated most of the copper mines in the country.
“We must, as quickly as possible, leave this unregulated market,” he said. “A few of us think the AIM could be the best place at first.” London is “also the place where the biggest mining companies are quoted and listed,” Taussac said.
The shares gained 0.8 percent to 2.52 euros by 3:53 p.m in Paris, where they trade on NYSE Euronext’s Marche Libre, an unregulated over-the-counter market. It is also listed on the Lusaka Stock Exchange, where liquidity is limited.
ZCCM-IH owns 20.6 percent of Konkola Copper Mines Plc, a unit of Vedanta, and 20 percent of Kansanshi Mining Plc with the rest owned by First Quantum Ltd. The company also has a 10 percent shareholding in Xstrata’s Mopani Copper Mines Plc and Eurasia Natural Resources Company Plc’s Chambishi Metals Plc.
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