Jatu shares rise on bullish firm’s plans

Dar es Salaam. Investors’ appetite for Jatu Plc stocks has risen sharply during the past few days as they believe the firm’s focus on agriculture could soon yield lucrative returns for them.

Jatu, which was officially registered in 2016, was listed on the Dar es Salaam Stock Exchange (DSE) in November last year (2020).

With a strategic plan of reaching all of Tanzania’s districts with its farming, industrial and network marketing projects, the company was temporarily suspended from trading on June 1, 2021 to pave way for its initial public offer.

The agri-based firm shares were trading at Sh1,200 before the suspension of trading, being more than double the Sh420 that it fetched during listing in November last year.

But when it resumed trading on Monday, August 30, 2021 the company shares were traded at Sh500 but has since appreciated to Sh1,030 by closing of trading session on Friday September 10, last week. Speaking to The Citizen, capital markets manager from Vertex International Securities Ltd, Mr Ahmed Nganya, said promising investment plans and its engagement on the country’s key sector of agriculture are some of the factors that attract investors’ appetite.

“Most investors also buy Jatu in an attempt to engage in the agriculture sector because that is the company’s core business. They want to join the value chain by becoming part of the company’s shareholders,” he said.

Mr Nganya said the company’s success in raising investment funds from its recent initial public offering also shows good prospects for the future, which continue to keep investors even more interested.

“It’s projected that in the coming weeks, the firm’s stocks would continue to appreciate as demand sours,” he said.

As soon as they came into the market on the week that ended September 3, with stocks traded at Sh500 per share, the stocks gained 44 percent of their value in one week, to close at Sh720!

Last week, the shares gained 43.06 percent, to close at Sh1,030 per share.

According to markets reports last week other trading counters also experienced a share appreciation where Twiga Cement which gained 9.18 percent to and closed at Sh535 per share and TOL which went up by 6 percent to close off the week at Sh530 per share.

Alternatively, the CRDB Bank’s shares price depreciated by 1.92 percent to end the week at Sh255 per share.

However, the equity market performance continued with the downward momentum as Turnover, Volume and Prices declined last week. Market reports show that the weekly turnover dropped by 34 percent, to Sh204.32 million from the Sh311.2 million of the preceding week.

In the same week, investors’ participation was also down, as the volume of shares traded dropped to 687,890 from the 828,457 shares that were traded in the week that ended on September 3, 2021.