Marula Mining (AQSE: MARU), a London-listed African mining and exploration company, has announced that it is moving forward with its planned dual listing on the Nairobi and Johannesburg securities exchanges.
- •Marula will be the first metals mining company to list in Nairobi and would join the exclusive club of dual-listed companies.
- •The mining outfit will be listed as part of the NSE’s Growth Enterprise Market Segment (“GEMS”), a grouping of SME’s including Homeboyz Entertainment Plc, Kirwitu Ventures Ltd, and Nairobi Business Ventures Ltd.
- •The listing is currently expected in Q1 of 2024.
Marula has operations in Kenya, Tanzania, South Africa, Zambia, and Zimbabwe with projects extracting rare earths, tantalum, lithium, niobium, and phosphate across its operational mines. In May 2023, the company established a subsidiary in Nairobi, Muchai Mining Kenya, to explore mining opportunities in copper and graphite. The demand for rare earth metals is skyrocketing globally as the world transitions to more sustainable and climate-friendly options for energy.
If successful, the NSE’s Geoffrey Odundo will be concluding his tenure as CEO on a high note having helped put an end to the exchange’s listing drought with its June 2023 listing of Homeboyz Entertainment Plc and now Marula Mining within a year of each other. The NSE has witnessed a prolonged listings drought beginning in October of 2015 when Stanlib Fahari REIT (now ILAM Fahari I-REIT) was listed.
Marula’s listing is good news for the exchange after it was reported earlier this month that three companies including Credit Bank have suspended their plans to list on the exchange, leaving some speculating that the decisions were due to the depreciating shilling.
- •The GEMS segment looks to see some changes in the coming year as new regulations are hoping to remove some barriers to trading for companies looking to trade on the exchange and is expected to collapse the NSE’s three segments into two – the Main Investment Market Segment and the SME Market Segment.
- •Marula’s listing stands to benefit from the African Exchanges Linkage Project (AELP).
- •The AELP is an initiative launched by the African Securities Exchange Association (ASEA) and the African Development Bank (AfDB) aimed at unlocking cross-border investment opportunities across the continent’s many different exchanges.
“The dual listings are in addition to our planned move of our primary listing in London to the Standard List of the LSE, which we are continuing to progress as well,” Marula Mining CEO Jason Brewer said in a statement to the press.
Faida Investment Bank is advising Marula’s listing as the company’s Nominating Advisor and Sponsoring Stockbroker while Bridge Capital Advisors is continuing as Marula’s Corporate Advisor and overseeing its JSE’s listing.