Bank mobilises informal sector in Vodacom’s IPO

Dar es Salaam. Covenant Bank for Women (Tanzania) Limited has partnered with a brokerage firm Zan Securities Ltd to help operators in the informal sector buy shares in the ongoing Initial Public Offer of the Vodacom Tanzania PLC.

The bank said it has established a special window to enable Tanzanians working in the informal sector purchase the Vodacom shares under the initial public offering (IPO).

Zan Securities will provide free advisory services for smooth process of buying the floated shares.

On Friday, the bank’s managing director Ms Sabetha Mwambenja and Zan Securities chief executive officer Raphael Masumbuko signed the partnership agreement as they said the IPO is an opportunity for economic empowerment among Tanzanians.

“Mobilising people operating in the informal sector to buy shares is in line with our mission which is helping improve the living conditions of women and poor Tanzanians. We think this is the right opportunity for economic empowerment of Tanzanians,” Ms Mwambenja told journalists after the signing ceremony.

Mr Masumbuko also said that it was the right opportunity for poor Tanzanians organised in groups such as Savings and Credit Co-operative Societies and Vicoba to purchase lucrative shares of Vodacom.

“We will advise Covenant Bank’s customers for free,” he said. The IPO will run from March 9 to April 19 this year. Vodacom intends, in the IPO, to raise Sh476 billion by selling 560 million shares at Sh850 each.

The IPO is an effort to comply with the Electronic and Postal Communications Act of 2010 as ammended in 2016, which made it mandatory for telecommunications companies to offload 25 per cent of their authorized shares to the public.

The Vodacom IPO, which becomes the first mobile phone firm to issue shares to the public, is the largest in the country’s history after the East African Breweries Limited raked in Sh122 billion when it offered 20 per cent of its shares in 2012.